Our first black candidate has virtually no political record.

I spent some time the other night with teh google researching Obama's political record and here is what I found:

2005 - introduced the Sheltering All Veterans Everywhere Act (S. 1180), legislation to provide services and affordable housing options to veterans.

2005 – introduced S.969, a bill to amend the Public Health Service Act with respect to preparation for an influenza epidemic, including an avian influenza pandemic, and to include other public health considerations.

2006 - The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act which requires a single searchable website, accessible by the public for free, with information on government contractor spending.

2006 - Transparency and Integrity in Earmarks Act which required that the name of a requestor and a justification for the earmark must be presented to the senate before consideration and would prevent lawmakers from advocating earmarks for interests they have a financial stake in.

2006 – authored the Fuel Economy Reform Act to raise automobile fuel efficiency standards and reform fuel economy laws.

2007 – Introduced a bill that would make deceiving or intimidating voters a federal crime with substantive penalties.

2007 – introduced the Oil SENSE Act to suspend royalty relief, to repeal certain provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal certain tax incentives for the oil and gas industry.

For those who prefer their legislative accomplishments in a bipartisan flavor I offer these:

2006 – worked with Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) to force competitive bidding on government contracts issued (no-bid) by FEMA for post-Katrina reconstruction work.

2007 - the Lugar-Obama initiative enhances U.S. efforts to destroy conventional weapons stockpiles and to detect and interdict weapons and materials of mass destruction throughout the world.

2007 – Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act a comprehensive ethics and lobbying reform bill that passed the Senate by a 96-2 vote.

2007 – with Senator Bill Frist (R-TN), Amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2007, S. 2766 requiring the VA to provide combat veterans with a mental health care screening within 30 days of an appointment request.

2007 – with Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) sponsored the Working Family Child Assistance Act to increase the refund available from the Child Tax Credit for working families with children.

2007 – with Senator Lugar (R-IN) introduced the American Fuels Act to increase domestic production, distribution and use of biofuels.

2007 - an original cosponsor of the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act, which was introduced by Senators Lieberman and McCain and would mandate 60% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Now, I'm not sure what it would take for people to stop with the "no political record" thing, which is pretty self-defeating coming from people who claim to have voted for Obama, but this should be a start (and it doesn't include anything he did as an Illinois state Senator). Even if all of these intiatives have not resulted in actual laws, the effort involved should count for something.

My mother had a great saying for people who don't take the time to do the legwork before flapping their gums. It's up there in the title to my post and it ain't about the cattle. Has more to do with the mooing going on....

Credit where credit is due, Sysprog got me started with this from one of his posts a couple of days ago:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303_pf.html

And I think he forwarded this by Hilzoy as well:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/10/barack_obama.html

I started digging around with these articles as a starting point because I'm tired of reading the same turdbunky in my local rag and wanted to write a coherent letter to the editor.

Amazing what you can find when you take a little time and look.

My Mom wasn't all wisdom and spice. She also used to say, "Because I said so." which didn't go over so well with me, but she stopped when I started giving her examples of why it might be smarter to give concrete reasons. We both learned. ;->

I don't consider being called "aggressive" a problem, and I wasn't trying to insult you. I was addressing your flat statement that:

Our first black candidate has virtually no political record.

"Virtually" means "almost entirely". So your point as stated was that Obama has almost entirely no political record. I disagreed and provided points to support that. He does have a political record (both nationally and in Illinois).

I don't disagree that there are other black leaders with deeper and more varied experience, but they are not running, and I'm betting he will be wise enough to keep them close as advisors should he win.

I am not "overtaken by the hope message", and I don't think there are a lot of other posters here who are either. And you certainly aren't bringing "news" to the party here when you inform us he's a product of the party - of course he is. That's just a fact of the unfortunate history of politics in this country (something I'd like to see change). But if you take a look at the nuts and bolts of some of that legislation I posted earlier, I think you would see that there's certainly more than a few things there that the rank and file corporatist wing of the dem party would not be happy to see pass, and that tells me a little bit about how he might lead, party be damned.

The reason the Dems would rather have a black man with no experience than a black man with experience, is that they know the electorate is racist.

Yeah, there are still racist pigs out there, but how you know this is The Reason for his candidacy is just beyond me, unless you'd care to share.

are cover for the racism that is endemic in the Republican party. They are the skirt behind which the right hides from the rightful accusations Omooex brings to our discussion.