What does Obama stand for, according to the record

After drilling down a bit through the Senate website you can do a search in the THOMAS system on different bills, motions, and amendments and their sponsors.

Well, being the uber-political geek that I am, I have been performing this activity on Mr. Obama.

Interesting.

There are 113 bills, amendments and motions that he has sponsored. The system does not currently supply information for 29 of these because they are amendments or additions that are only made available at specific times (strange). From reading the titles or summaries of all of the available items, I would say that the top priorities for Obama have been (in no particular order):

- Veterans benefits (very admirable and much needed)
- Education (I'm really torn on this one because there is only one other country that spends more MONEY on education than we do, yet we fall short of progress. Most of Obama's measures go to support low income and underperforming students)
- Limiting the approval of military spending and actions
- Bills to recognize or aid African Americans specifically (10 of them)

I've downloaded several of these bills and have been digging through them and will probably post more later.

Some things that concern me are:
- His solutions to education problems seem to focus at throwing more money into the system. I am personally in favor of supporting the voucher system and cutting out the beauracracy that is the Department of Education and start focusing on educating kids. John Stossel has a great article on wasteful school spending here. I think Obama does what all liberals do. Take a failed system and throw more money at it... and where do they get that money? Oh yeah, my paycheck.

- He tries to play commander in chief, but he's only a Senator. How much control will he relinquish to this same body if the rolls are flipped?

- Most of the things that he has legislated are either handouts or pandering to certain groups and many of them are racial in nature.

One thing that has come up recently, that really concerns me is the whole idea of racial preference. I started researching Obama's religion when I got the whole email chain about Islamic schooling. What I found really concerned me.

Here is an excerpt from their webpage:

A congregation committed to ADORATION.
A congregation preaching SALVATION.
A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.

Very strange 10 point vision for a church. I've never seen a church that mentions Africa twice, but never God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit. Is this really a church or some African Cultural Center? "Economic Parity"? What on earth does socialism have to do with worshiping God?

I also read an article about Obama's spiritual mentor and HIS mentor. You can read that here.

Now, anyone who knows me, knows that I am anything but racist. I hate racism. I hate racism of anykind. I truly wish that this country and this world would live the dream that MLK had, where people would not be judged "by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character". But racism goes both ways. Hating me because I'm white, or just as bad, giving someone else preference OVER me because I'm white and they're anything else is just as wrong as holding someone down because they aren't white.

I've heard all of the arguements for afirmative action and quite frankly, I think they had a place at one time. But that time is gone. Long gone. It's time to move on.

Class rhetoric and race baiting should have no part in a presidential election. Unfortunately those are the only two things that are repeated over and over by ALL of the Democratic candidates. Sad for them. Sad for us.