“What’s Past Is Prologue”

We are now less than two weeks away from Election Day. In some places, voting has already begun. You’d think that in this stage of the game we know all there is to know about our two presidential candidates. You’d be wrong. No, in fact one of the candidates is being unusually secretive, refusing to release documents and records that are routinely released by all candidates. Is it the republican? Barak Obama called the Bush administration “the most secretive White House in modern history” and said,

“On the first day of an Obama Administration, we will launch the most sweeping ethics reform in history to shed sunlight on the decisions made by government and put the interests of the American people at the center of every decision that’s made.”

So it must be that John McCain is following in Bush’s footsteps, no? Um, NO. In fact, it is Senator Obama who is keeping his records in the dark. Compare:

Medical Records:

John McCain released “1,173 pages of medical documents that span 2000 to 2008″ back in May. (He previously released records for the time prior to 2000 during his last campaign.)

“It was pretty remarkable to get that level of detail about a candidate,” noted CBS News contributor Sanjay Gupta.

Barak Obama released a one page summary. The scant information was based on a physical 16 months before and inaccurately stated that Obama had quit smoking. (Later it came out that, “Once a heavy smoker, he publicly gave up the habit, per his wife’s request, to run for president.” and that since officially quitting he had “fallen off the wagon” several times during the campaign.) Even his favorite newspaper, the New York Times said,

“Senator Barack Obama has put out such meager information that voters have to take it largely on his campaign’s say-so that he is in good health.”

Proof of U.S. Citizenship

The U.S. Constitution requires that the President must be a “natural born” citizen.

No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.

Both John McCain and Barak Obama have had questions raised on this issue.

John McCain was born on a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone leading some people to speculate that he is not a “natural born citizen” because he was born outside of the U.S. However a congressional act in 1790 clarified, “And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens.” To quell any concerns, the McCain campaign made his birth certificate available for the press to review. His campaign also consulted two leading jurists, Theodore Olsen and Laurence Tribe, to verify his natural-born citizenship. Their legal findings (which concluded he is a natural born citizen three ways – because his parents were both citizens, the Panama Canal was under U.S. sovereignty at the time and because he was born on a U.S. military base) were released to the press. (Also, the U.S. Senate, led by the democrats, “declared” him a natural born citizen in April. But it’s not legally binding and seems rather superfluous to me.)

Barak Obama says he was born in Hawaii and his mother is an American citizen. So clearly he’s a “natural born citizen.” But wait. The Obama campaign has never release an official certified copy of his birth certificate – they only posted a scanned image on their website. Some people are alleging that the image is a forgery. There are now multiple lawsuits (at last count 3, but apparently others in the works) demanding that Obama turn over a certified “vault” copy of his birth certificate to the appropriate judicial or election officials. Why? Barak Obama’s paternal grandmother swears he was born in Kenya – she says she was present at his birth. Two of his half-siblings attest to this as well. And there’s another concern that Obama lost his U.S. citizenship when his mother married an Indonesian citizen and naturalized in Indonesia. While this all sounds rather far-fetched, at least one of the lawsuits is being taken very seriously. (Watch the Toledo Fox affiliate’s news story here.) The crazy thing is, all it would take to put this whole conspiracy theory to rest is for the Obama campaign to produce an actual certified paper copy of his birth certificate. (And those of us who have had to compile a dossier know it’s not that hard, or that expensive to do so.) Why won’t he?

Campaign Fundraising

John McCain, like every other major party nominee since the public finance laws were inacted in the early 1970’s after Watergate, chose to accept public financing for the general campaign. What this means is he is limited to spending a total of 84.1 million dollars. (To put that in perspective, Obama raised over 150 million last month alone). At this point in the campaign, he is being outspent by Barak Obama at a ratio of approximately 4 to 1.

The law requires that both candidates report all donations over $200. Here is the FEC summary report for the McCain campaign. Factcheck.org reports that less than 1.7 percent of McCain’s presidential campaign receipts and 1.1 percent of the RNC’s income come from lobbyists and Political Action Committees. Further, in an effort to provide full public access, the McCain campaign has made available the contributor database from the primary election. And this week the Republican National Committee launched a new website with a searchable database of all donors who gave under $200. (By law they only have to report the names of those who give over $200.)

Barak Obama is the first major candidate to opt out of the public finance system. This despite the fact that he made the following statement in 2007:

I have been a long-time advocate for public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests. I introduced public financing legislation in the Illinois State Senate, and am the only 2008 candidate to have sponsored Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) bill to reform the presidential public financing system. In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election. The Federal Election Commission ruled the proposal legal, and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge. If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.

Now not only does Barak not believe in “free televsion and radio time”, “In some markets, Mr. Obama has bought up all available media slots in certain times.” He’s putting on four times as many ads as McCain, he has his own channel on dish network and he’s bought a half hour of prime time programming on three major networks less than week before the election (Fox is delaying the start of the World Series for him.)

Barak Obama has broken all fundraising records (see his public disclosure form here.) – but there are questions about where some of that cash may have come from.

By Obama’s own admission, more than half of his contributions have come from small donors giving $200 or less. But unlike John McCain’s campaign, Obama won’t release the names of these donors.

A Newsmax canvass of disclosed Obama campaign donors shows worrisome anomalies, including outright violations of federal election laws.

For example, Obama has numerous donors who have contributed well over the $4,600 federal election limit.

Many of these donors have never been contacted by the Obama campaign to refund the excess amounts to them.

And more than 37,000 Obama donations appear to be conversions of foreign currency.

According to a Newsmax analysis of the Obama campaign data before the latest figures were released, potential foreign currency donations could range anywhere from $12.8 million to a stunning $63 million in all. With the addition of $150 million raised in September, this amount could be much more.

The issue with contributions under $200 is that the same person could donate multiple times, but as long as they keep each donation under $200 it doesn’t have to be publicly reported. You know it’s bad when even Newsweek is forced to report about it:

Consider the cases of Obama donors “Doodad Pro” of Nunda, N.Y., who gave $17,130, and “Good Will” of Austin, Texas, who gave more than $11,000—both in excess of the $2,300-per-person federal limit. In two recent letters to the Obama campaign, Federal Election Commission auditors flagged those (and other) donors and informed the campaign that the sums had to be returned. Neither name had ever been publicly reported because both individuals made online donations in $10 and $25 increments.

This is getting long so I won’t go into details but click here for more about the shady foreign donations to Obama’s campaign. And click here for reports of credit card fraud in donations to the Obama campaign. Suffice it to say not only are Obama’s campaign funds not transparent, but there appears to be a lot of suspicious activities going on.

Now my point in all of this was not to suggest that Obama is unhealthy or not an American citizen or purposely perpetrating financial fraud. My point is that Obama’s words don’t match his actions. My point is Obama has given us no reason to trust any of his promises – and in fact has given us numerous reasons to distrust him. (The three I listed are just a start, read here for more examples.) My point is, as Shakespeare said, “What’s past is prologue.”

Or to put it another way, “Senator Obama, I’m afraid of your words“