Chicago Democrat "Change"

The Chicago Democrat utopia hasn't "changed" much:

2 more dead, 4 wounded in 3 shootings
April 21, 2008

Three separate shootings within two hours on the West Side overnight left two men dead and four people wounded, police said.

The shootings came at the end of a deadly weekend in Chicago that saw six others slain and 23 people wounded in gun violence across the city.

Chicago doesn't have a total ban on guns, but they do have a de facto handgun ban, a ban on several types of semi-autos, continuously blocked concealed carry efforts, etc.

Policies that Obama would either defend at, or expand to, the federal level. Since it has failed miserably in Chicago, the problem must be that everybody should be doing it. Obama has pointed to the poverty/education issues behind the violence problem:

Obama told churchgoers at the Vernon Park Church of God on the city's South Side that too many young lives are being claimed by violence and more must be done by public officials and members of the community to combat the problem.

...

He also said government should support and fund more after-school programs to keep kids off the streets. But some of the burden must also be shouldered by residents who need to do more to raise and protect at-risk children, he added.

''We have an entire generation of young men in our society who have become products of violence, and we are going to have to break the cycle,'' Obama said. ''There are too many young men out there who have gone down the wrong path.''

He later added, ''There's a reason they go out and shoot each other, because they don't love themselves. And the reason they don't love themselves is because we are not loving them enough.''

From his own web pages on education and poverty he seems to have little to no record (his record is that brief bit at the bottom of each page) in dealing with the underlying issues of violence.

On poverty:

Barack Obama's Record

• Tax Relief for Low-Income Working Families: Obama created the Illinois Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income working families in 2000 and successfully sponsored a measure to make the credit permanent in 2003. The law offered about $105 million in tax relief over three years.
• Housing: In the Illinois State Senate, Obama championed multiple pieces of legislation to help low-income families find adequate affordable housing.

On education:

Barack Obama's Record

Record of Advocacy: Obama has been a leader on educational issues throughout his career. In the Illinois State Senate, Obama was a leader on early childhood education, helping create the state's Early Learning Council. In the U.S. Senate, Obama has been a leader in working to make college more affordable. His very first bill sought to increase the maximum Pell Grant award to $5,100. As a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, Obama helped pass legislation to achieve that goal in the recent improvements to the Higher Education Act. Obama has also introduced legislation to create Teacher Residency Programs and to increase federal support for summer learning opportunities.

I didn't shrink those down. That's all of it. He talks the talk... and then calls that leadership and championing, etc.

Not that Hillary "Annie Oakley" Clinton is hardly a prize when it comes to the issue of guns either, but Obama has been relying on his experiences in Chicago as a basis for many of his policy positions. The problem is, of course, he has little record of bringing change, at the community level or the State/federal level. Now he wants people to have "hope" that he can do it from a distant and limited office on issues that he himself argued relies primarily on community/local policies/action?

Community/local action is something Obama does have a record with. As The Nation summed it up:

Despite some meaningful victories, the work of Obama--and hundreds of other organizers--did not transform the South Side or restore lost industries.

A sentiment echoed by Obama himself as reported in US News and World Report:

By Obama's own admission, there were few big victories.

...

Perhaps his most confrontational effort was to pressure city authorities to remove asbestos from the apartments in 1986. When the on-site manager didn't take action, Obama nudged the residents into confronting city housing officials in two angry public meetings downtown. These generated "a victory of sorts," Obama said later, as workers soon began sealing the asbestos in the buildings. But the project gradually ran out of steam and money. In fact, some tenants still have asbestos in their homes, according to current resident Linda Randle, 53, who worked with Obama in the '86 anti-asbestos campaign.

Faced with such frustrations, after three years in Chicago, Obama decided to apply his skills in the wider world.

As a State Senator and now a US Senator his record on taking further actions seems dismal, even from his own sales pitch.

His record seems to back up his change credentials about as much as Bush's National Guard record backed up his Commander in Chief credentials... poorly.

Of course for a Democrat, the "Annie Oakley" alternative isn't all that compelling:



[grit teeth] "I support [gag] [gulp] the 2nd Amendme [heave] Amendment." [grit teeth harder]

Sure ya do, Annie.