Although novelist Nora Ephron has pronounced herself “ready for Barack Obama” regardless of whether Obama is ready to be president, John Fund points out that the rest of the country may not be in such an expansive mood. And many voters may become downright unready for Obama once they discovery how liberal he is. As Fund notes,
Only for so long will Mr. Obama’s sparkling personality help him avoid troubling questions about his ideological record. The fact that he originally opposed the war in Iraq would help him with primary voters, but it’s unclear how many Democrats want to plump for someone who, according to National Journal, has a more liberal voting record than Hillary Clinton. Last year Mr. Obama had a perfect 100% voting record from both the Americans for Democratic Action and the AFL-CIO.
His record as a state legislator is even more liberal. In 1996, he spoke out against the Defense of Marriage Act, which the Senate approved 85-14 and Mr. Clinton signed into law. He twice voted “present” on a bill to ban partial-birth abortions. In 1999 he was the only state senator to oppose a law that prohibited early prison release for sex offenders. Is anyone naive enough to believe Mrs. Clinton wouldn’t use those positions as evidence that he couldn’t win?
UPDATE: The comparison to Jesse Jackson is based not only on Obama’s down-the-line left-liberal positions, but also on his work as a community organizer in Chicago and his staunch support of racial preferences for minorities.
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