Obama played hardball in first Chicago campaign [View All]

[SeaLyons]

Disenfranchise the voters....Politics of hope and change????


http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/29/obamas.first.campaign/index.html


The DNC has not seated the Florida and Michigan delegates because the two states violated party edicts in holding their primaries early.

Although neither candidate campaigned in the two states, Clinton won about 50 percent of the Florida vote, compared to 33 percent for Obama. She won 55 percent of the vote in Michigan, where Obama's name was not on the ballot.

In his first race for office, seeking a state Senate seat on Chicago's gritty South Side in 1996, Obama effectively used election rules to eliminate his Democratic competition.

As a community organizer, he had helped register thousands of new voters. But when it came time to run for office, he employed Chicago rules to invalidate the voting petition signatures of three of his challengers.

The move denied each of them, including incumbent Alice Palmer, a longtime Chicago activist, a place on the ballot. It cleared the way for Obama to run unopposed on the Democratic ticket in a heavily Democrat district.

"That was Chicago politics," said John Kass, a veteran Chicago Tribune columnist. "Knock out your opposition, challenge their petitions, destroy your enemy, right?" Kass said. "It is how Barack Obama destroyed his enemies back in 1996 that conflicts with his message today. He may have gotten his start registering thousands of voters. But in that first race he made sure voters had just one choice."

Obama's challenge was perfectly legal, said Jay Stewart, with the Chicago's Better Government Association. While records of the challenges are no longer on file for review with the election board, Stewart said Obama is not the only politician to resort to petition challenges to eliminate the competition.

"He came from Chicago politics," Stewart said. "Politics ain't beanbag as they say in Chicago. You play with your elbows up and you're pretty tough and ruthless when you have to be. Sen. Obama felt that's what was necessary at the time, that's what he did. Does it fit in with the rhetoric now? Perhaps not."