Senator Barack Obama fired up a crowd of an estimated 6,000 people in Santa Barbara today.
This evening, Santa Barbara television station KSBY ran an article and posted this video about the presidential candidate’s visit. Pitifully, the Santa Barbara News-Press, pariah of South Coast newspapers, had nothing on its front page about the visit tonight. Neither did the Ventura County Star.
The following quotes are from the KSBY article and video:
“I really think he has the power to change the country through inspiring millions of people like myself,” said supporter George Corbin.
Another supporter, James Johnson, said, “I think it’s really about changing the system, and the fact that he really understands that inspires me a lot.”
Obama’s comments seemed to strengthen these views: “If you’re looking for a president of the United States of America, then don’t just bet on this campaign, believe in yourself.”
I trust we’ll get better reporting of the event tomorrow morning.
Tonight, Obama attends a fundraiser at Oprah Winfrey’s home in nearby Montecito.
Today, the Los Angeles Times ran the puzzlingly poorly edited article, “Obama: A Fresh Face or an Old-school Tactician?” It does not paint a flattering portrait of Obama in the rough-and-tumble Chicago political scene.
He was ambitious, says the article, citing a staffer, Cynthia K. Miller, as saying Obama had told her he planned to be president. This was in 1995.
Among other things, the article implies that Obama had directed state money to a nonprofit run by Yesse Yehudah as a payment-in-kind for a series of donations to his failed campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives.
The article describes how Obama helped black-owned investment firms get money from the state pensions funds and then received large campaign donations from them, particularly from Ariel Capital.
Another odd incident occurred when Obama bought a $1.65 million house in Chicago. The seller of the house also wanted to sell a small parcel of land along with the house. Antoin Rezko is an early financial supporter of Obama who was recently under federal indictment. His wife bought the land and later sold it back to Obama, who has now transferred it to his lawyer. Obama admitted his involvement in this affair was“boneheaded.”
So, our hero does not have completely clean hands. This is disheartening. But does Hillary? Does John Edwards? Does any politician? Should we plug our noses and hope for the best?
Certainly, Obama, Clinton, and Edwards would all be preferable to any Republican currently on offer. At least our candidates would not trample on the Constitution as the present president has done. And luckily, the GOP probably does not have the courage to choose Rudolph Giuliani as its candidate, he’s too liberal on social issues, after all, and secretly tolerates gays. Therefore the Republicans’ candidate will lose the election handily.
But I am tired of the same old politician, the type that does not understand that political office is a sacred public trust, that no portion of this can be bought and sold. I had hoped Obama was not one of these. Is all of this blown out of proportion? I certainly hope so.
