GOP targets 'present' vote in soft-on-crime dig at Obama Nick Juliano

Published: Thursday October 23, 2008





Print This Email This Police union pres decries 'one of the most dishonest attacks yet' One of the infamous "present" votes Barack Obama cast as an Illinois Senator is serving as fodder for Republican attacks attempting to paint the Democratic candidate as soft on crime.



RAW STORY obtained a GOP mailer sent to independent voters in Florida that alleges Obama is "against protecting children from danger."





(The full mailer, sent by the Republican Party of Florida, is reproduced below.)



The same charge is leveled in a recorded phone call John McCain's campaign is placing to voters in Wisconsin and Indiana, Talking Points Memo's Greg Sargent reports.



The Obama campaign sent RAW STORY the following statement from National Association of Police Organizations president Tom Nee. The union has endorsed Obama.



"This is one of the most dishonest attacks yet from an increasingly dishonest, dishonorable campaign," Nee said. "It is a fact that Senator McCain voted against putting more police on the street, outlawing cop killer bullets, voted against Justice Department grants that would help local police keep our nations neighborhoods safe and he even voted against the Violence Against Women Act, while Senator Obama voted to crack down on crime, target gangs, put rapists away and was endorsed by the National Association of Police Organizations. Its clear that Senator McCain and his agents would rather distort facts and scare people than talk about his disastrous public safety and economic policies that offer no change from the last eight years."



To support its charge, the flyer cites a 1999 bill in the Illinois State Senate that would have prosecuted juveniles as adults for gun-related crimes committed on or near school grounds. The measure was one of several dozen "present" votes Obama cast during his time as a state legislature.



An Obama aide pointed to scores of other Obama votes to rebut the GOP's charge he is against children. As a state senator, Obama voted to increase penalties in child abduction and molestation cases, to crack down on sex offenders and child pornography and to require clergy members to report sexual abuse.



In an article last year, the New York Times highlighted the bill in an examination of Obama's "present" votes. In that case, the paper reported, Obama's present vote was not part of a broader strategy by Democratic state senators, as had been the case on some other measures, such as a few anti-abortion bills.



Aides said back in December that Obama voted present because of concerns over the bill's effectiveness.



The Times mused that "political calculus" may have been a motivation for Obama, who faced competing pressure to appeal to African Americans and maintain a reputation as being tough on crime. Thom Mannard, director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said political calculation could have figured in that vote.



If he voted a flat-out no, Mr. Mannard said, somebody down the road could say Obama took this vote and was soft on crime. If the vote was an attempt to dodge future political consequences, it doesn't seem to have worked out too well. Republicans have attacked Democrats as "soft on crime" for decades, and they don't seem ready to let a few legislative semantics get in their way this time around.





The following flyer landed in mailboxes of Florida independent voters this week. (Click for full size)



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