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ORIGINAL: Thadius

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There are some socialists amongst the liberals in Chicago but I know of no avowed communists with any sort of influence and Obama certainly never got involved with the well known communist groups here.

Where to begin...
Who was his mentor and teacher before he headed off for college? Frank Marshall Davis.
Who was his boss during the "political organizing"?  Gerald Kellman.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20080728/bs_ibd_ibd/20080728issues fun new story..

But since you brought up his run for the state senate...

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http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-international-socialist-connections/
Obama's socialist backing goes back at least to 1996, when he received the endorsement of the Chicago branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for an Illinois state senate seat.  Later, the Chicago DSA newsletter reported that Obama, as a state senator, showed up to eulogize Saul Mendelson, one of the "champions" of "Chicago's democratic left" and a long-time socialist activist. Obama's stint as a "community organizer" in Chicago has gotten some attention, but his relationship with the DSA socialists, who groomed and backed him, has been generally ignored.   

  

I won't talk to much about Axelrod and Daley, their records speak for themselves, but if you are claiming that Daley is squeaky clean you definitely have your eyes closed.  As somebody that was born and raised in Bridgeport, I am intimately familiar with the Daleys. What issue is Daley not liberal on?  I am more curious though about Axelrod's comment about Ayer's and Obama's connections... he claimed that their children went to the same schools...  I hate to inform him that Ayer's youngest is 27.

I think that is enough to digest for now.

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

This whole somebody endorsed a guy so he must be in with them stuff is getting tiresome. Obama was not and is not a member of the DSA. As to an endorsement back in 1996 do you have any evidence he sought it? If he didn't seek it out it didn't mean anything.

Saul Mendelsohn may have been a member of the DSA but he sure as heck was prominent in a lot of other stuff that certainly had no socialist leanings. I knew him the IVI/IPO and I'm having a lot of trouble understanding how speaking at a funeral for a man who may have been a socialist makes you a socialist.

Frank Marshall Davis was in Hawai'i so I don't know anything about him personally but after reading about him I fail to see what makes him so bad. I didn't find anything where he admitted to being a communist and many places where he is quoted denying the same. I guess being strongly pro union is enough in some people's eyes to brand someone a communist. Although are you saying a man dead 22 years somehow defines the politics of someone who was a teenager when they knew each other?

Gerald Kellman is someone I don't know and a few calls back to Hyde Park couldn't turn up anyone who knows him either. If he's some terrible communist indoctrinater you'll have to provide evidence not derived from Murdoch or moonies.

As to Daley, he's not liberal on virtually everything. He's big on tax breaks for business, His stint as state's attorney was a disgrace and he remains "tough on crime", he supports the death penalty and so on and so on. For someone who claims to know Chicago to claim Daley is a liberal is bizarre in the extreme. Most people here view him as a centrist or a conservative.

P.S. I never said Daley was clean. Why you tried to put that in my mouth is another odd part of this surpassing odd response.

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ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

Thadius, you're not even on thin ice here, you're floundering.  Went to the same school?  Did he say they were in the same grade? 

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Anyways, there is enough information out there for folks to look it up for themselves.  Don't take my word for it, research it yourself, and draw your own conclussions.  I hope folks will do some looking, and not take anything I or anybody else says as gospil.

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ORIGINAL: DomKen


Name the newsletter Davis wrote for.


But this all boils down to guilt by association which isn't just wrong its about as unamerican as it gets. One of those pesky rights our forefathers gave us is the freedom to associate.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ibd/20080728/bs_ibd_ibd/20080728issues

A careful reading of Obama's first memoir, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 -- a man he cryptically refers to as "Frank" -- was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his "subversive," "un-American activities." As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis' feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment. "They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that sh**." After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences "for inspiration," Obama followed in Davis' footsteps, becoming a "community organizer" in Chicago.

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But this all boils down to guilt by association which isn't just wrong its about as unamerican as it gets. One of those pesky rights our forefathers gave us is the freedom to associate.

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ORIGINAL: Sanity


When we vote we have every right to decide based on a given candidate's choice of associates, and there is nothing "unamerican"  about it. In Obama's case he has no useful experience so his choice of associates is practically all we have to go by when judging the fitness of the man's character for the high position he seeks.

Your assertion that judging him by by who he associates with eliminates his right to associate is just nonsense.

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But this all boils down to guilt by association which isn't just wrong its about as unamerican as it gets. One of those pesky rights our forefathers gave us is the freedom to associate.

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What I'm saying is labeling anyone as anything based solely on his associates is unamerican.

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ORIGINAL: Manawyddan

Obama's advisors are mainly centrist politicians. McCain's advisors seem to be mainly lobbyists.

Eight years ago, I definitely would have voted for McCain over Gore. Four years ago, I probably would have voted for McCain over Kerry. But after eight years of Bush and his do-nothing Congress, it takes a bigger man than McCain to get me taking the Repubic party seriously again.

I'll be voting for the lesser of two evils.

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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

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What I'm saying is labeling anyone as anything based solely on his associates is unamerican.

Horseshit.  Every person who walks the earth is judged chiefly by his selection of friends and companions. 

It has always been the order of things.  It will always be the order of things.