by Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families: There can be no doubt that Senator Barack Obama has become a huge political phenomenon. Just ask a stunned Hillary Clinton, who sees her dream slipping away. His crowds are huge, and their adoration for him almost resembles a religious fervor rather than mere political support. In fact, even some media liberals are beginning to get uncomfortable about what they are witnessing. Joel Stein, who writes for the Los Angeles Times calls it "the cult of Obama." Jake Tapper of ABC News has referred to the "Helter-Skelter cultish qualities" of "Obama worshippers." Charles Krauthammer dealt with this phenomenon in his column in the Washington Post this morning and zeroed in on Senator Obama's soaring, but puzzling, rhetoric that garners such an emotional reaction. He cites Obama lines like this: We can "remake the world as it should be," and "a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest."I am used to politicians promising they will give me free health care, but "repair the world" and make our age "different than all the rest"? Needless to say, the rhetoric is not matched with any specifics. Senator Obama's only solution so far to Islamofacism is to suggest we abandon our commitments in the Middle East and call a conference for Muslim nations to talk. His economic plan is boiler plate liberalism - take more money from people who are doing well, launder it through the Washington bureaucracy and give what's left, after the bureaucracy skims off its share, to the needy. He has come very close to saying that he would confiscate the profits of oil, insurance and drug companies and use it to fund "free" housing, job progress, etc. If he actually does these things, the consequences would be devastating.
Yet for now, his "spell" still works its magic. Senator Obama, who is promising a new day, has already bought into the old ways - he has buried dozens of pork barrel projects into appropriation bills to help his own state of Illinois. The question of this campaign will be whether facts like that will matter. I believe they will matter, but it isn't going to be easy.
Tags: Barack Obama, cult, Democrat, Election 2008, Gary Bauer, presidential candidate
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