Mike Allen and Ben Smith:
When Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was seeking state office a dozen years ago, he took unabashedly liberal positions: flatly opposed to capital punishment, in support of a federal single-payer health plan, against any restrictions on abortion, and in support of state laws to ban the manufacture, sale and even possession of handguns.
Filling out a 12-page questionnaire [part 1 of questionnaire, part 2 of questionnaire] from an Illinois voter group as he sought a state Senate seat in 1996, Obama answered “yes” or “no” — without using the available space to calibrate his views — on some of the most emotional and politically potent issues that a public official can confront.
“Do you support … capital punishment?” one question asked.
“No,” the 1996 Obama campaign typed, without explaining his answer in the space provided.
“Do you support state legislation to … ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns?” asked one of the three dozen questions.
“Yes,” was Obama’s entire answer.
...
A week after Politico provided the questionnaire to the Obama campaign for comment, an aide called Monday night to say that Obama had said he did not fill out the form, and provided a contact for his campaign manager at the time, who said she filled it out. It includes first-person comments such as: “I have not previously been a candidate.”
The campaign said his views have been consistent, and points out that his positions have always been more nuanced than can be conveyed in yes-or-no answers.
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Democrats are big on nuance when their views conflict with the rest of the country. Expect obfuscation and Clinton like parsing on these issues. Note, race is not the reason he should lose. He should lose because he is wrong on the issues including the Iraq war.
If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?