Mar 01 Lynn Rothschild Warned Us

Back in September and October, 2008, Lynn Rothschild tried warning America that an Obama administration would be a disaster. Now she's written an op-ed in the NY Post reminding America of her warnings and why she reached the decision to support John McCain:

Back in September 2008, as a lifelong Democratic Party loyalist and activist, I backed John McCain; I told The New York Times, "I love my country more than my party." Supporting a Republican was the last thing I expected to be doing in the fall of 2008. But I knew it was my only choice, given the decision by the Democratic Party establishment to reject 18 million voters in favor of the inexperienced and ideological Barack Obama.

President Obama frequently talked like a moderate. Frequently, President Obama outlined his radical agenda in soothing tones. It isn't surprising that he's turned out to be the radical I feared he'd be. Unfortunately, the United States Constitution doesn't have a recall provision in it. If it did, President Obama might be the first president to be recalled.

The health-care summit vividly demonstrated Mr. Obama's fake bipartisanship. When he was a candidate, we celebrated when he said, "We are not red or blue states. We are the United States of America." But candidate Obama had no record of bipartisan behavior. Ironically, the one time that Obama entered into a bipartisan effort was with, of all people, John McCain. He reached across the aisle to draft ethics reform legislation with Senator McCain. But when Obama returned to the Democratic establishment with a bill that did not meet their favor, he backed away fast. It was candidate McCain who had worked productively and regularly with Democrats, like with Russ Feingold on campaign-finance reform and Ted Kennedy on immigration. The record told me more than the rhetoric about which candidate would honestly respect the other side and reach across the aisle to find the best solutions for America.

President Obama shied away from living up to his rhetoric. Just like Democrats are shying away from living with the PayGo law, President Obama is utterly bashful in terms of being a post-partisan president. In fact, he's possibly the most bitterly partisan president since LBJ, which is saying something considering President Clinton's frequent displays of bitter partisanship.

Perhaps the biggest fabrication of the Obama candidacy was his claim of being a centrist. Sure, he made promises during the campaign that pleased moderates. He promised "the elimination of capital gains taxes for small business," a $3,000 refundable tax credit to existing businesses for every additional employee hired through 2010, removal of penalties for early withdrawal of 401(k) savings during the recession, and no administration jobs for lobbyists. Perhaps the best of all was the promise he made in the Mississippi presidential debate when he said, "We need earmark reform. And when I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely." They were specific, sensible promises -- ones that enabled him to mislead the electorate about his real plans for America.

Again, I chose to look beyond the rhetoric to the record. At the time, it was obvious that a candidate who won the primary because of the left would be beholden to the left, no matter what promises he made to get elected. It was also obvious to ask what kind of president would have voted "present" on 129 difficult votes while in the Illinois State Senate. He was always thinking about how to keep every constituency happy; how to maintain his viability for the White House. In The Audacity of Hope, he criticized Bill Clinton for giving too much respect to Ronald Reagan. He asked the Democratic Leadership Council, the centrist Democratic group, to remove his name from their lists.

Everything in his past told us that President Obama would be a leftist Alinsky-trusting radical. Personally, I always thought he'd be incompetent and unethical, too. You can't be ethical when you grow up politically in the Chicago political machine. It isn't likely that you'll be competent when your public policy instincts lean towards Alinsky-style radicalism and you're only 200 days in session removed from the Illinois state Senate.

His performance in the debates, first against Hillary, then against McCain was pathetic if you took away the style points. Bill Clinton was a polished policy wonk by the time he stepped onto the national stage. President Obama? Not at all.

It's vitally important that we elect a GOP majority to provide the proper counterbalance to President Obama's radicalism. Fortunately, that looks more than possible.

Comments welcome at LFR.