LIMBAUGH: Viability shortfall

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By David Limbaugh

The press is shocked that Sen. Barack Obama has "yet to close the sale," given the "political logic" that favors Democrats in this election. They must not have been paying attention during the final segment of the primary season, when Hillary Clinton consistently thrashed the hollow superstar.

That said, Mr. Obama's handlers betray not the slightest concern because they believe that despite the statistical tie in the polls, Mr. Obama's supporters are much more intense than Sen. John McCain's supporters. "That is going to mean more favorable turnout patterns; it is going to help us register voters; it is going to help us organizationally," said Mr. Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe.

Indeed, political analysts have been speculating for months now that Mr. Obama could transform presidential politics by energizing a whole new class of voters.

If that's true, Mr. McCain has his work cut out for him because the voters Mr. Obama is inspiring seem more enamored with his image than who he really is and what he stands for. Being largely apolitical and emotionally driven, they won't be as receptive to the ever-unfolding, troubling revelations about Mr. Obama.

While the media are stunned that Mr. Obama is not resonating in line with their expectations, others wonder how he can resonate at all, given his McGovernesque, leftist agenda and his damning associations with America-hating preachers (Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger), terrorists and radicals (William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn) and a mentor (Frank Davis) who was a member of the Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA and who, according to Investor's Business Daily, "fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his 'subversive,' 'un-American activities.'"

Mr. Obama had better hope he can initiate new voters oblivious to the threat he represents to the foundational principles of the republic because if Mr. McCain continues to expose Mr. Obama over the resistance of the media and baseless, malicious charges of dirty campaigning and racism, even modestly informed voters should awaken to these concerns.

Truthfully, an Obama presidency should scare the pants off 70 percent of Americans.

Across the board, Mr. Obama is dramatically out of sync with this center-right nation. But like all liberal politicians aspiring to the presidency, he's doing his best to keep voters in the dark about his hard-core leftism.

On social issues, Mr. Obama, while not openly admitting his support for same-sex marriage, has written letters to homosexual activist groups, saying he favors homosexual adoption and a repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. He says he would reduce abortion, yet he has fought valiantly to protect it as a constitutional right. He supports partial-birth abortion, and arguably enabled infanticide by opposing an Illinois version of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act.

On economics and energy, he favors punishing producers and spreading misery rather than prosperity. He would increase capital gains rates, even though that would decrease revenue and help no one - all in the name of fairness. Despite his expedient vacillation, he opposes domestic drilling and nuclear energy. He would impose an arbitrary "windfall" profits tax on oil companies (and transfer that money directly to American families in defiance of constitutional principles) despite historical evidence (from the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980) that it would reduce our domestic oil supply, further increase our dependency on foreign imports, only marginally increase revenues, and raise gas prices for everyone, including the hapless rebate recipients to whom Mr. Obama would assign these transfer checks from the illusory revenue.

On defense and foreign policy, he very well might dismantle our nuclear weapons in this increasingly nuclear age and would abandon missile defense programs. He would precipitously withdraw our troops from Iraq, thereby jeopardizing its stability and our victory there and inviting the very terrorist enemy he says he would hunt down to reenter and thrive again. He would adopt policies concerning Afghanistan wholly inconsistent with everything he claims to stand for - and against - in Iraq. He would greatly increase our role there and disincentivize participation of our allies in flagrant contradiction to his criticisms of President Bush's "unilateralism" in Iraq. But he would not add enough troops to simulate Gen. David Petraeus' successful surge strategy in Iraq - only enough to risk entangling us in a Sovietlike quagmire that Democrats claim to oppose, except when they are in control of the executive branch. And he would transform stingy America into a safety net for the entire world with his Global Poverty Act. Then again, as Mr. Obama told Berliners, we are not merely American citizens, but "citizens of the world."

On top of all this, Mr. Obama's entire campaign theme is fraudulent. How can a man unite America when his views are so far out of line with average Americans for whom he has revealed unbridled contempt? How can he inspire America when he advertises his disdain for what he believes America has become?

No, it's not really surprising that Mr. Obama has allowed Mr. McCain to catch him in the polls. It's amazing that he's in serious contention himself.

David Limbaugh is a nationally syndicated columnist, lawyer and author. His book "Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party" was released recently in paperback.