Posted on 05/29/2008 9:27:26 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The day after New Year's 1996, operatives for Barack Obama filed into a barren hearing room of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.
There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city's South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama's four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.
Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate saying he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens.
But in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer.
A close examination of Obama's first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.
One of the candidates he eliminated, long-shot contender Gha-is Askia, now says that Obama's petition challenges belied his image as a champion of the little guy and crusader for voter rights.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Conservatives can play by Alinsky’s rules for revolution
too. Count and recount until we get the votes we need.
Or... challenge every discounted ballot.
Somebody’s still on the plantation and that ho at his side ain’t Maxine Waters.
Welcome to Chicago. We’re about to export professional corrupt to D.C.
great find Vet. This is a must-read for everybody on FR and in the GOP.
It would be nice if the NY/DC/Boston press corp would read it as well to find out how their messiah ended up on the stage.
I still think Richard Nixon was wrong to forego a recount against John Kennedy in 1960. Think how a Nixon win then would’ve changed history!
Very interesting. Thanks for posting.
typical chicago politics
Good article. While I’m not defending the practice of faked signatures (I’m sure a lot of clean-cut young Barry’s were faked, too), it reveals that Obama is extremely ruthless and clever politically. He doesn’t seem to know much else, but he is really driven by a hunger for power, and he does know politics.
Look at how he leaped at the comment by Bush about appeasers (not even referring to him) and suddenly made it all about him - but in such a way that the firm implication was that it would be “vicious” to challenge him on his positions. Obama is first out of the box when it comes to political attacks, no matter how off the wall. And it is that ruthless, insane quality that is probably going to let him win this. He reminds me of the sociopath in “Six Degrees of Separation.”
Truthfully, I’m more than a little nervous about the prospect.
He’s contaminated. They should throw him back in the pond he came from.
Great read.
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