I want to like Barack Obama. I want something to make me enthusiastic about voting for him. Yet, he hasn’t been showing me much. Today, he stepped up and did something to make me believe in him. He placed a hold on the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky to a permanent position on the Federal Election Commission. He was recess appointed by Bush on January 4, 2006. In other words, Bush couldn’t secure the Senate’s approval of this guy when Bill Frist was running the joint. Why?
You can read Jeffrey Toobin’s 2004 New Yorker article, or you can check out the epluribusmedia profile. Spakovsky has been the point man on voter suppression in the Justice Department. In fact, he was the point man in Florida 2000, masterminding the voter purge.
“In 1997, von Spakovsky wrote an article for the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, a conservative research group, that called for an aggressive campaign to ‘purge’ the election rolls of felons. Within months of that article’s publication, the V.I.P. helped put von Spakovsky’s idea into action. Phillips met with the company that designed the process for the removal of alleged felons from the voting rolls in Florida, a process that led, notoriously, to the mistaken disenfranchisement of thousands of voters, most of them Democratic, before the 2000 election,” Toobin wrote. “During the thirty-six-day recount in Florida, von Spakovsky worked there as a volunteer for the Bush campaign.
Then they put him in charge of the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ, where he pushed ‘voter fraud’ cases that are non-existent, approved the purging of Native American voters in Minnesota, disenfranchised blacks in Georgia with the photo ID requirement, and signed off on Tom DeLay’s illegal redistricting plan. Harry Reid worked out some kind of deal where Spakovsky could be confirmed in a package deal. I guess he got Bush to sign off on the Democrats in the package. Who knows what Reid got out of the deal and who cares?
Here’s Obama’s statement. He just went up in my estimation.
Go Obama!!!!!!
Now- off topic but– K B Hutchinson??? Report possible departure proior to end of term! Who choses replacement?????
she does…or Perry. If she leaves it will be to run for Governor in 2010. Once elected she can appoint her replacement (depending on the timing of her resignation).
Kudos to Obama on this one. It’s about time someone stood up and put a foot down, so to speak. And it’s good to see a presidential candidate taking a stand here. (C’mon, Dodd… Biden… Clinton… where are you?)
agreed. call the guy’s office, and give him some love.
(202) 224-2854
I agree Booman… he’s a quick learner. As a candidate its becoming clear he is directing his own campaign — now THERE’S something new!
It is moments like these that inspire me to support Barack Obama. He doesn’t always do what I would want him to do, but he does think outside of the box. Oft times boldly so.
I think what’s especially important here is that he’s arguing this not from some narrow legalistic viewpoint, but makes it a civil rights matter. I wish more Dems would make that kind of connection instead of nattering about legalist/parliamentary/electoral details. Good for him.
I could happily support him in a general election. But this news got me thinking that if he doesn’t get into the White House he’d make a terrific SC justice.
I felt the same way when I heard of his opposition, which has been unwavering. I really admire and appreciate that.
In addition, Obama was the only one of the three major candidates to oppose the move to give Bush power to wage war in Iraq at the time, not after the fact. (Hillary still doesn’t think it was wrong. I did then, and do now.)
Obama’s going to get my vote in the primary. I too wish I could like him better, but he’s not afraid to go against the flow, and that really counts for a lot these days, as we see ourselves surrounded by lemmings.
Go Obama! Now that’s what I’m talkin bout!