The right-wing is licking its chops at the prospect of an Obama nomination because it will allow them to run against "one of the most liberal senators in the senate!" I know, pretty scary stuff. One of the biggest arrows in their quiver, from their so 3 years ago perspective, is MoveOn.org's endorsement of Obama, which the right still thinks it can use as an extremist albatross to throw around Democrats' necks.
To get a sense of the meaning the term 'MoveOn' has taken in right-wing parlance, take a look at how the Wall St. Journal recently framed Barack Obama's vote against telecom immunity:
It says something about his national security world view, or his callowness, that Mr. Obama would vote to punish private companies that even the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee said had "acted in good faith." Had Senator Obama prevailed, a President Obama might well have been told "no way" when he asked private Americans to help his Administration fight terrorists. Mr. Obama also voted against the overall bill, putting him in MoveOn.org territory.
In other words, MoveOn = soft on terror, blah blah blah. Obama likes to say he looks forward to having a national security debate with John McCain and, if he is the nominee, I hope he means it, including defending MoveOn against the inevitable attacks he's going to receive.
In the meantime, a preview of the sort of thing we might expect against Obama is being waged by one of McCain's BFFs in the senate, Maine Senator Susan Collins, against her challenger, Congressman Tom Allen who has been a true progressive in Congress and who was on the receiving end of a huge MoveOn fundraiser that netted him more than $360,000. Susan Collins thinks bringing this up to Maine voters is a winning strategy. She even has a website called StandUpToMoveOn.org, which she raises the spectre of Allen cavorting with his merry band of esxtremists...
Senator Collins has worked hard for the people of Maine, but now far-left extremists have decided to attack her.MoveOn.org has made Maine its #1 target
According to the latest FEC reports, MoveOn.org has sent more money to her opponent than all of the presidential candidates combined, over $365,000 already.
...and uses it to raise money for her campaign.
She even makes videos...
...and touts the Allen/MoveOn nexus at townhall meetings...
It's fairly pathetic and I suspect fairly useless among most voters, although I will say my brother who lives in Maine and is an independent who is liberal on most things, has real reservations about MoveOn; it hasn't, however, stopped him from supporting Allen or Obama.
In the event of an Obama nomination, I do expect McCain's anti-MoveOn broadside to be far fiercer since the connection between Obama and MoveOn is starker than that of MoveOn and Allen; it's something to be on the look out for and something I hope Senator Obama will take head on and not shirk from.
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