The Obama Decline: From Agent of Change to Hesitant Politician

By Newt Gingrich

From Waffling on Drilling to Carter-esque Uncertainty in the Russia Crisis

Senator Obama's first step on his long, downward slide may have been repudiating Reverend Jeremiah Wright, his pastor of twenty years.
Then, Senator Obama waffled on drilling offshore to ease the energy crisis, first supporting a blanket prohibition even to the extent of actively seeking to withhold from the public the results of government surveys of America's offshore oil and gas reserves. This was followed by his expression of "openness" to some undefined "limited" drilling. Why? Because the voters were increasingly unhappy with Obama's leadership on anti-energy extremism. His lead had collapsed.

Next, Senator Obama handled the Russian assault on Georgia with an uncertainty eerily reminiscent of President Carter. He sent three different messages to the American people (and the world) in the same number of days (while getting tougher and clearer as he went along, he reminded everyone that while he was the campaigner in chief, he was not really ready to be commander in chief, and the damage was done).

Picking the Candidate Who Got Nine Thousand votes Instead of the Candidate Who Got 18 Million

Last week former federal prosecutor and National Review Online Contributing Editor Andy McCarthy documented the degree to which Senator Obama has been dishonest about his record of opposing legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would have protected babies who survived a failed abortion. This is a position, by the way, which puts him in opposition to over 90 per cent of all Americans, including liberal Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) as well as 99 other members of the U.S. Senate, who voted in favor of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act in 2002. Americans almost universally believe that live-born infants must be afforded full legal rights under law, regardless of their stage of development or whether their live births occurred during a failed abortion.

Now Senator Obama has nominated as his running mate a man who received 9,000 votes for president and withdrew.
Obama could have picked Hillary Clinton, who received 18,000,000 votes. (He would have done so, by the way, without sacrificing his desire to have a Vice President with strong national security and foreign policy credentials on the ticket.)

That works out to 2,000 votes for Clinton for every one vote Senator Biden got.

Your friend,
Newt Gingrich