Or, “Flip-Flops Can Kill”

It appears that the editorial board members at the University of Florida are fed-up with Barack Obama’s flip-flips on every issue from the Iraq War to FISA. Despite endorsing him way back in January saying, “We feel Obama’s message in the Oval Office will inspire young people and resonate with all Americans,” they now seem to feel differently.

Since clinching his party’s nomination for president, however, Obama has started to clarify, qualify and triangulate to such a degree that we can hardly recognize him from the inspirational “change” candidate he represented a few short months ago.

Barack Obama has been an inspiring figure for many youth voters up until this point. However, his profound tendency to waver in the face of political hardship has taken the shine right off of the sparkling image he has as something other than a typical politician, and this is beginning erode his support among youth voters.

Perhaps Obama isn’t the great change agent we thought he was. Perhaps no one can change the system. Or maybe we expected too much from someone who is, after all, just another politician.

Maybe these folks should look to someone who has stood up to say what he believes even when it wasn’t the easiest thing to do; someone who loves his country so much that he will do whatever it takes to protect it even if that means losing an election. Someone like John McCain.

Looks like Obama supporters, especially young supporters, are a little disenchanted to learn that their primary minted messiah is little more then a chicago style, back room politician.

“I think there has been some erosion of the aura of excitement about a different kind of politician that Barack — they really fueled Barack Obama’s rise. It’s helped him with fundraising, given him these huge crowds at events. I’ve been talking to voters this past week for a story I’m working on, and I’ve had some people, young people who felt that Obama was the candidate of a generation, saying they’re distressed by some of the standard political moves that they’re seeing now.” – USA Today’s Susan Page on MSNBC’s Hardball, 6/2/08

See the full video here.

Well, by now we have all heard that Obama has broken his “pledge” (his word) to accept public financing for the general election if his Republican opponent does the same. John McCain has kept his end of the bargain, but Obama sees a more politically expedient approach and is going to opt out of the public financing system, becoming the first presidential candidate since Nixon to do so.

Of course, this starts raise issues about his trustworthiness. Obama has made a great many promises to his supporters throughout this campaign, some of which are on a much grander scale than committing to public financing. Already we see his supporters having to call him to task over his recent pandering to the political center on the FISA bill, which he now says he supports even after promising to never compromise his values on such legislation only months ago. MoveOn.org has been sending their millions of liberal members emails asking them to make sure Barack doesn’t continue to break promises.

But, I never really thought he would lose support over breaking his pledge to accept public finanicing. While it is certainly a window into his character, it’s sorta a inside-baseball kind of issue. Not many people in the public carry public financing as their #1 issue.

I stand corrected:

Obama is holding a “Change That Works for You” event today with students in Taylor, Michigan. Sigh…

I feel like I’m beating a drum here, but when does Obama start to feel bad about all this hypocritical pandering? Look, just because we’re youth voters doesn’t mean that we will fall for anything and everything you tell us. Sometimes we do our own research, and it seems like Barack Obama is continuing to live in two separate worlds. There’s the one world where he has been a bi-partisan reformer, taking stands on unpopular issues for the greater good of the country…and then there’s reality where he simply toed the partisan line, or ducked an issue and cast his vote the way everyone else seemed to be voting. Meanwhile, John McCain has demonstrated his ability to bring about dramatic change in our government on issues of great importance to youth voters such as energy policy and the environment.

Listen, I get it. Having only one year of experience in the US Senate before you start running for president puts him at a little bit of a disadvantage in that he doens’t have much of a record to run on. But seriously, just making stuff up isn’t the way to run a campaign either.

Here’s one of my new favorites from his speech last night in Detroit:

“When Bush assigned Cheney to create energy policy, he met with the environmental groups once, the renewable energy groups once, he met with the oil and gas companies 40 times. Washington has become so dominated by the powerful, by the well-connected, that the voices of the American people are no longer heard.”

Ah yes, that horrible, evil energy bill that has led our country into this oppressive energy crisis…er, what? Oh? Oh, Barack Obama voted for the 2005 Energy Bill that he just referred to as the root of the problem in the energy crisis America is now facing. Well, I mean everybody was voting for it! It certainly wasn’t an issue anyone would want to take a stand on - do you know how risky those types of things are? Oh. You say John McCain voted against the 2005 Energy Bill…because

“This bill does little to address the immediate energy crisis we face in this country…I cannot in good conscience, vote to pass legislation that does not adequately address issues related to energy efficiency, security, and energy independence.” Sen. McCain 6/28/05

Obama has again tried to fool students on his record today in Michigan as he continues to live in two worlds. The first where The other world is full of the real results and actual voting record of John McCain as he’s fought for over 24 years in the Senate to enact dramatic change and real reform in our government.

Obama keeps telling students how “Washington has become so dominated by the powerful, by the well-connected, that the voices of the American people are no longer heard,”and yet he voted against the interest of the “American people” he cites in 2005.

His hypocrisy knows no bounds.

If Barack Obama really believes the stuff he says on the campaign trail about how our energy policy was formed, he should apologize for his vote for the 2005 Energy Bill. He won’t though because Barack Obama doesn’t represent anything new in Washington - just more of the same liberal games being played on a new generation of voters.

Sounds like Obama needs to get Axelrod back on message….  

Mary Katharine Ham has a very interesting post on the importance of staging and advance work in sending a message on television. She has posted two pictures of the Obama rally in NC held tonight - one the television shows and the other from a little more…uh, inclusive angle.

As Seen On TV:

As Seen In Real Life:

Now anyone in politics can tell you that every campaign in the world tries to master the angle the media depicts in photos and on television in addition t orchestrating countless other things to portray an bigger, more excited, all around better crowd than might actually be there. But Miss Ham (is it Miss or is she a Mrs.? I just don’t know) brings up an interesting point here about the lack of media scrutiny of such facts with the Obama campaign and an overzealousness to report them about Republicans like John McCain:

I realize it’s standard practice to rope off an area of a venue for crowd-wrangling and appearances, but this is a little drastic. McCain’s event at the Wait Chapel at Wake Forest today was nicely filled if not overflowing, but I imagine if he had held it at Groves Stadium and filled only the endzone seats, someone in the media might have said something about it. Obama doesn’t have such worries, I guess.

Indeed.

Barack Obama on negative campaigning at 12:33 PM ET Today:

“We have been consistent in this campaign in talking about the issues. Trying to have a different kind of politics. … In fact, I’ve been adamant to say we can’t run that kind of campaign. It’s contrary to our message. And I think it would actually erode support for me, in addition to not solving the problem the American people need solved.”  (CNN interview)

Barack Obama’s distorted, negative attack at 1:02 PM ET Today:

Repeated a distorted, negative attack on Senator McCain’s economic record that ABC News called an example of how to “twist the knife” and Chicago Tribune said was “only partially quoted”.