--- Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
> >m I the only one who was not particularly impressed
> by him? He
> >seemed nice. He had a nice story. He had nice
> credentials. And maybe
> >he was good in Illinois politics? I don't know.
> >--
> >Michael Perelman
>
> Barack Obama appealed to rich educated white voters
> by boasting of
> his responsibility for the welfare reform and
> placated working-class
> constituencies by emphasizing that he softened its
> blow:
>
> <blockquote>Candidates address drug prices, welfare
> law
> By CHRISTOPHER WILLS
> The Associated Press
>
<http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/emaf.nsf/Popup?ReadForm&db=stltoday%5Cnews%5Cstories.nsf&docid=5DA1BA9DBD874A7586256F3C004DC627>
> Friday, Oct. 29 2004
>
> . . . Obama said he had "been responsible, in this
> state, for one of
> the most successful welfare reform programs in the
> country."
>
> Obama, a freshman senator when the welfare reform
> package passed, was
> a key Democratic negotiator on the issue, but Sen.
> Dave Syverson,
> R-Rockford, was its lead Senate sponsor. Keyes said
> Obama did sponsor
> a bill to track the progress of the Illinois
> program. . . .
>
> Obama said the two bills were separate, and his
> statements about
> helping shape welfare reform in Illinois refer to
> his role in the
> negotiations.
>
> "I've never claimed that I single-handedly passed
> welfare reform,"
> Obama said. "What I said was I was the Democratic
> lead negotiator for
> the welfare reform bill we eventually
> passed."</blockquote>
>
> Obama will be an obstacle in bringing the troops
> home and ending the
> occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan:
>
> <blockquote>Alan Keyes and Barack Obama debate,
> hosted by Illinois
> Radio Network
> October 12, 2004 . . .
>
> MODERATOR: Senator Obama, you were against the war,
> no doubt about
> it, before the war began. But now you're in favor of
> keeping troops
> there. How long?
>
> BARACK OBAMA, (D) ILLINOIS U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE:
> Well, let me first
> of all say thank you for hosting this debate.
>
> Ambassador Keyes and I agree on one thing, and that
> is that the War
> on Terror has to be vigorously fought. Where we part
> company is how
> to fight it, because I think Afghanistan in fact was
> not a preemptive
> war, it was a war launched directly against those
> who were
> responsible for 9-11. Iraq was a preemptive war
> based on faulty
> evidence--and I say that not in hindsight, or
> Monday-morning
> quarterbacking. Six months before the war was
> launched, I questioned
> the evidence that would lead to us being there. Now,
> us having gone
> in there, I do think we now have a deep national
> security interest in
> making certain that Iraq is stable. If is it not
> stable, not only are
> we going to have a humanitarian crisis, I think we
> are also going to
> have a huge national security problem on our
> hands--because,
> ironically, it has become a hotbed of terrorists as
> a consequence, in
> part, of our incursion there.
>
> In terms of timetable, I'm not somebody who thinks
> we can say with
> certainty that a year from now or six months from
> now we're going to
> be able to pull down troops. I think that we have to
> do three things.
> Number one, we have to rapidly advance the speed
> with which we are
> training Iraqi troops and security forces so that
> they can stabilize
> the country, and that's going to require our help.
>
> But it's also going to require the help of the
> international
> community, which is why we have to internationalize
> this process. I'm
> under no illusions that the Germans and the French
> are going to be
> sending troops in any time soon, but I do believe
> that we can get
> them to put more resources into the training and
> infrastructure
> required to secure the Iraqi borders and the Iraqi
> streets.
>
> And finally, I think it's important that we get our
> reconstruction
> moving. I think it is undeniable that the
> reconstruction process that
> has taken place has been completely inept. And
> that's not simply my
> estimation, that's the estimation of the two ranking
> Republican
> Senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
> Chuck Hagel and
> Dick Lugar, who issued a blistering attack on this
> administration six
> weeks before the presidential election. Highly
> unusual--and I think
> it indicates how badly botched this job has been.
>
> MODERATOR: Senator Obama, Afghanistan has just
> conducted the first
> elections in its 5,000-year history. They appear to
> have gone very
> well--at least, up to this point. The Bush
> administration is pointing
> to that as a suggestion of the way the elections
> might proceed in
> Iraq. Is that not a hopeful sign for Iraq, and for
> the elections that
> we may be seeing there in January?
>
> OBAMA: I think it is an absolutely hopeful sign for
> the people of
> Afghanistan. And as I have stated unequivocally, I
> have always
> thought that we did the right thing in Afghanistan.
> My only concerns
> with respect to Afghanistan was that we diverted our
> attention from
> Afghanistan in terms of moving into Iraq, and I
> think would could
> have done a better job of stabilizing that country
> than we have in
> providing assistance to the Afghani people.
>
> But I think that all of us, Republican and Democrat,
> should be
> rooting for the Afghani people and making sure that
> we are providing
> them the support to make things happen. With respect
> to Iraq, I think
> it's going to be a tougher play. But, again, I don't
> think any of us
> should be rooting for failure in Iraq at this point.
> This is no
> longer George Bush's war, this is our war, and we
> all have a stake in
> it.
>
> But, you know, the analogy that I use is that, you
> know, if a driver
> of a car, your car, drives it into a ditch, there
> are only so many
> ways to pull it out. And so, John Kerry is going to
> be doing many
> similar things to what George Bush is doing in terms
> of making sure
> that we do the best we can in Iraq.
>
> That doesn't mean we don't fire the driver, and it
> doesn't mean that
> we don't examine carefully what lead us to be in
> this ditch in the
> first place. I think it was a bad strategic
> blunder--and as I said,
> that's not simply my estimation. That's the
> estimation of a number of
> Republicans.
>
>
<http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/media/debates/04_10_12irndebate.htm></blockquote>
>
> On big-ticket items, he is a typical Democrat.
> --
>
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