Third Parties Expose Obama's Politics as Usual
From the American Chronicle's Kevin Zeese:
"In 2004 there was only one significant challenger to the corporate political duopoly both of whom put forward candidates that campaigned in favor of continuing the Iraq occupation. This year there will be three legitimate campaigns challenging the duopoly. And, since none of the Democratic or Republican Party candidates is calling for a real end to the occupation, Iraq may provide the energy for these efforts."
"Unfortunately, Senator Obama has reversed course and can no longer be described as a peace candidate. He recently said he will leave the private mercenaries in Iraq which at a minimum are 140,000 troops and may be twice that number. His campaign has said that Obama will leave up to 80,000 troops in Iraq. And, Obama has said he will withdraw combat troops to a surrounding country like Kuwait so they could serve as a strike force in Iraq. Obama continues to promise to end the "war" but the details do not describe an end to the war. Further, he has kept a military attack against Iran on the table and plans to expand the already too large and too expensive military by 92,000 troops. He describes his foreign policy as a return to the policy of George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and JFK -- all of whom aggressively used U.S. military force.
Obama may think he has the Democratic nomination wrapped up and is positioning himself for the General Election, but now with three serious independent political challenges who all oppose the war his Republican-lite positions risk losing many peace voters and the election."
"The desire for more choices in elections has been growing in recent
years. The president has very low approval ratings as does the Congress
-- the latter for their failure to fulfill their 2006 mandate to end the
war. One-third the electorate now considers themselves independent, not
Democratic or Republican."
If what Zeese implies is true--that Barack Obama has changed his stance on the Iraq war to cater to potential non-Democrat voters--the popular senator's campaign may be irreparably damaged. If a full third of U. S. voters are not affiliated with either major party and a significant chunk of these independent voters look to third party candidates like Cynthia McKinney, Mike Gravel, Bob Barr, or Ralph Nader for a fresh approach to key issues, Obama's increasingly moderate, Republican-friendly anti-war stance will likely strike such voters as evidence of precisely the sort of politics-as-usual behavior for which the Senator has so vehemently asserted his disdain. It would seem that the staunch anti-war sentiments of the McKinneys, Gravels, Barrs, and Naders of the world, especially in their unwavering consistency, will undoubtedly force voters to reconsider the trustworthiness of Obama's views on Iraq--the validity of which has been a problem for the junior senator ever since his Democratic challengers questioned his experience in the earliest debates.
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