Say Anything Blog

Barack Obama has a liberal problem.  To be specific, he’s too liberal for the general American public.  He’s got a radical leftist background, complete with a twenty year relationship to Rev. Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright and a former Weather Underground terrorist as a political mentor, and a voting record that puts him to the left of Ted Kennedy in the Senate.

So to offset that Obama’s been trying to convince voters that he appeals to both Democrats and Republicans.  He illustrated this broad base of appeal by starting a group called “Republicans for Obama” that featured former Senator Lincoln Chaffee.  Who, ironically enough, also happens to be a former Republican.

Because nothing says “Republicans for Obama” like politicians who quit the Republican party.

Anyway, Obama is pulling this same stunt again in South Dakota where he has “life long Republican” and sportsman Tony Dean backing his campaign.  The problem?  Dean, who was considered for the Democrat ticket for Congress at one point and who is an active backer of Democrat Senator Tim Johnson, isn’t even really a Republican.

[F]ormer Joyce Foundation board member Barack Obama has secured yet another faux Second Amendment supporter in “lifelong Republican” Tony Dean, a long-time host of hunting and fishing television shows in South Dakota. Dean told the Dallas News he’s switching parties to head a Sportsmen for Obama group.

A “lifelong Republican” that is “switching parties to head a Sportsmen for Obama group”?

This is an interesting claim, given that Dean was mentioned by the Rapid City Journal in 2003 as a “possible Democratic candidate for Congress” who endorsed Democrat Senator Tim Johnson for reelection just a year earlier. Dean’s efforts to draw gun owners to Johnson weren’t enough, and Johnson’s Republican challenger, John Thune, became a U.S. Senator from South Dakota. According to public records, Dean donated money to another anti-gun South Dakota Democrat, Tom Daschle, also in 2003.

For Tony Dean to have “switch[ed] parties to head a Sportsmen for Obama group” he would have to have done so at least two years before Obama was even elected to Senate, and five years prior to he announced his presidential bid. Indeed, it appears the word “lifelong” is as difficult for Dean and the Obama campaign to define as the word “is” is to Bill Clinton.

Dean is quoted by the Dallas News as saying he’s “99 percent sure a President Obama isn’t going to infringe on gun rights.” But seeing as Mr. Dean, who at least one blogger has been dubbed ‘South Dakota’s Al Gore’ because of his fervent belief in human-cause global warming, describes himself as a “moderate on the gun issue” who “opposes the NRA on most gun issues,” his assurances about Obama aren’t likely to be much consolation to pro-gun voters.

It gets worse.  Dean’s endorsement of Obama is supposed to help shore up Obama’s problem with gun-owning Americans (read: most Americans) despite Dean’s own decidedly mixed record on guns.  But it’s all just deception, as Obama’s gun record (something the Obama campaign has been less than truthful about) is about as anti-gun as you can get:

A candidate questionnaire shows that Mr. Obama supported a ban on handguns in 1996. In 1998, he backed a ban on the sale of all semiautomatic guns (a ban that would encompass the vast majority of guns sold in the U.S.) In 2004, he advocated banning gun sales within five miles of a school or park (essentially a ban on all guns sold in almost all the states). Possibly, even more importantly, he served on the board of the Joyce Foundation, probably the largest private funder of anti-gun and pro-ban groups and research in the country.

The Obama campaign “flatly denied” the 1996 statement supporting a ban on handguns, blaming it instead on a staffer from his state senate race who they said had incorrectly filled out the candidate questionnaire. But the Politico obtained a copy of the statement and found Mr. Obama’s own handwritten notes on it indicating that he had personally checked and corrected answers.

This is the problem with Obama.  He’s campaigning as a change candidate.  A candidate whose authenticity is above reproach.  But in order to appeal to a wide swath of Americans, and not just the uber-liberal enclaves in places like San Francisco and Chicago, Obama can’t be who he really is.  He has to hide behind deceptive answers to gun issue questions, and faux Republicans like Tony Dean and Lincoln Chaffee.

That’s not change we can believe in.