As an Illinois resident, I can tell you that voting "present" (0.00 / 0)

was an Obama strategy, not an accepted Democratic strategy. The Obama apologists would have you believe that this was all part of a plan to fly air cover for those state senators in swing districts. The problem is, Illinois really didn't have any swing districts at the time Obama was a state senator. We were a state whose districts used to be remarkably predictable in terms of red or blue. That has changed in recent years, for a couple of reasons: 1) more liberals have moved to previously Republican suburbs in search of affordable housing, and 2) even stalwart Republicans have become disgusted with the Bush administration.

Illinois, happily, has had a strong tradition of defending women's rights (we even have a state ERA), so no true Democrat has ever felt the need to hide his/her principles on women's reproductive freedom--there are just too many state senatorial cohorts to back each other up on this one. Believe me, Obama's "present" votes tell you everything you need to know about him. It's clear that, even when those votes were cast, he was thinking about a presidential campaign. Dick Durbin, our other U.S. senator, who is wildly popular in this state, is about as progressive as you can be on women's reproductive rights (and he's a Roman Catholic!), and it's never hurt him in state elections, so, it seems that Obama's been positioning himself for a national run for a long time now. He is the ultimate opportunist.

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by: grayslady @ Fri Jul 04, 2008 at 07:49:58 AM CDT