Democrats in four states – Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont – head to the polls today to vote for a presidential nominee, and the stakes are huge. Question is, do voters really know these candidates well enough?
Not likely. Because neither Sen. Hillary Clinton nor Sen. Barack Obama appear to have been totally candid with the public.
That’s nothing new for Clinton, of course. Much of her political career, dating back to her days at the White House, has been shrouded in secrecy and unanswered questions.
But Obama has built his campaign on trust and honesty.
He’s sought to establish a spiritual bond with everyday Americans – so they don’t have to worry about his lack of a solid record and fleshed-out policies.
Now, it seems, there’s evidence his campaign has been breaching that trust.
In their debate in Ohio, both Dems suggested they’d try to gut the NAFTA treaty within six months of taking office. Yet Obama economics adviser Austen Goolsbee was reportedly meanwhile hinting to Canada’s government that Obama didn’t really mean what he said – that his rhetoric “should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.”
Wink, wink, nod, nod, that is.
The Obama campaign denied it.
But The Associated Press yesterday produced a memo from a Canadian diplomat summarizing the meeting and Goolsbee’s remarks, reaffirming the charge. Obama’s folks then bobbed and weaved.
In a way, it’s good news: Gutting NAFTA to please labor unions would come at everyone else’s expense. So if Obama isn’t serious about that, it’s to his credit.
Alas, voters now have no way of knowing exactly what his intentions are.
Meanwhile, the corruption trial of his one-time major fund-raiser, Chicago real-estate mogul Tony Rezko began this week. Questions center on Obama’s purchase of a house in 2005 on the same day that Rezko’s wife bought an adjacent parcel and on the candidate’s purchase of a portion of that land while the feds had Rezko in their sights.
The unusual simultaneous sale of that adjacent plot of land to Rezko’s wife may have helped the Obamas save $300,000 – while the Rezkos purchased their property with few cash assets. Plus, just three weeks before these property exchanges, Rezko got a $3.5 million loan from his business partner, Iraqi billionaire Nadmi Auchi.
Obama says he has provided all the necessary explanations about the strange deal. But numerous lingering questions can only leave the public wondering.
Nor has Clinton been wholly forthcoming. It took until last weekend, for example, for her to agree, finally, to release her and her husband’s tax returns come April 15. (The Obamas released theirs last fall.) What’s she been hiding?
And the complete records of her comings and goings as first lady in the White House years continue to remain under seal. Clinton blames the Clinton Presidential Library for the holdup, while the library cites bureaucratic red tape from the White House.
Of course, something that the library could release without any problem is its complete list of donors – yet it still refuses to do so, citing donor “privacy.”
So it seems voters won’t get all the facts needed to make an informed choice.
That fact alone may make them want to sit out today’s vote.