OBAMA LIED ABOUT FILLING OUT CAMPAIGN QUESTIONNAIRE

[The Politico]

On December 11, 2007, The Politico ran a story about a candidate’s questionnaire filled out when Obama first ran for public office.

Obama’s answers to the survey revealed the candidate to be so left wing in his views, The Politico opined that his political positions could come back to haunt him now that he is running for president.

Indeed, 12 years ago, Obama took unabashedly liberal positions: flatly opposed to capital punishment, in support of a federal single-payer health plan, against any restrictions on abortion, and in support of state laws to ban the manufacture, sale and even possession of handguns. Filling out a 12-page questionnaire [part 1 of questionnaire, part 2 of questionnaire] from an Illinois voter group as he sought a state Senate seat in 1996, Obama answered “yes” or “no” — without using the available space to calibrate his views — on some of the most emotional and politically potent issues that a public official can confront.

But it gets far worse for Obama than being embarrassed by ultra liberal positions taken in the questionnaire. It now turns out he lied about having a role in filling the questionnaire out in the first place.

In fact, Team Obama claimed the candidate never approved—indeed—that he never even read or saw the questionnaire. Team Obama asserted the responses were filled out by a campaign aide who “unintentionally mischaracterize[d] his position.”

The “ah ha!” moment comes from an amended copy of the questionnaire that Politico has now obtained which—as you may have guessed—was clearly filled out by Obama and contains his hand written comments and amendments to certain answers.

“But a Politico examination determined that Obama was actually interviewed about the issues on the questionnaire by the liberal Chicago nonprofit group that issued it. And it found that Obama — the day after sitting for the interview — filed an amended version of the questionnaire, which appears to contain Obama’s own handwritten notes added to one answer.

The two questionnaires, provided to Politico with assistance from political sources opposed to Obama’s presidential campaign, were later supplied directly by the group, Independent Voters of Illinois — Independent Precinct Organization. Obama and his then-campaign manager, who Obama’s campaign asserts filled out the questionnaires, were familiar with the group, its members and its positions, since both were active in it before Obama's 1996 state Senate run."

According to The Politico, the questionnaires provide fodder to question Obama’s ideological consistency and electability.
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Those questions are central to efforts by Obama’s presidential rival Hillary Clinton to woo the supe-rdelegates whose votes represent her best chance to wrest the Democratic nomination from Obama:

"Taken together — and combined with later policy pronouncements — the two 1996 questionnaires paint a picture of an inexperienced Obama still trying to feel his way around major political issues and less constrained by the nuance that now frames his positions on sensitive
issues."