In 1996, Obama joined the New Party, a radical socialist political movement deeply opposed to capitalism and of the opinion that the Democratic Party was far too moderate. It’s just one of the many ideological ties to leftwingnut associates he won’t acknowlege.
Another lie exposed.
From Big Government.
This week the White House decided to double-down on a claim about the President’s past involvement in a social democratic party in the mid-90s. In 2008 when Stanley Kurtz first raised the issue, the campaign labeled it a “crackpot smear.” Now, despite two newly discovered documents that prove Obama joined the New Party in 1996, the White House is still maintaining Obama was not a member.
The two documents were dug up by Stanley Kurtz last week and published at Buzzfeed yesterday. As previously reported, minutes of a January 11, 1996 meeting plainly state that Obama attended, spoke, answered questions, asked for an endorsement, signed a “Candidate Contract” and “joined the New Party.” Here’s the document:
Despite this documentary evidence that Obama joined the New Party on 1/11/96 and was listed in their (lapsed) membership rolls in April 1997, Buzzfeed spoke to several members of the Party who claim that Obama wasn’t a member and that the group didn’t really have membership:
“Obama was never a member, never active in anything,” said Dan Swinney, a co-chair of the Party at the time and now the head of the Center for Labor and Community Research in Chicago, who was present at the 1996 meeting, according to the minutes. “I wish he was. He was obviously a progressive Democrat, but not a member of the New Party.”
“There was really no process” for becoming a member, Swinney said.
……Additionally, the documents Buzzfeed published contain a 13 page list of more than 300 members who had not paid their annual dues (including Barack Obama whose membership would have expired 1/11/97 making him 4 months overdue at the time the list was published). Nearly all of these delinquent members have a phone number associated with their name. The area codes are overwhelmingly 312 and 708, i.e. Chicago area codes. There are 3 exceptions out of 300+, all of which are in Illinois. In other words, this is (lapsed) membership list for the Chicago chapter of the New Party. The claim that the Chicago group did not keep track of membership in 1996-1997 is demonstrably false.
In any case, what exactly is the argument being offered here? Two members of the Party, Dan Swinney and Amy Sherman, were at the meeting Obama attended in 1996 according to the minutes. Both claim they don’t recall him at all. Nevertheless they are both certain that even if Obama was there, he didn’t join. It’s a very selective memory lapse.
The purpose of keeping meeting minutes is to preserve a written record of what happened at a given meeting rather than rely on fading and sometimes faulty recollections. In this case, the meeting minutes, the membership list with Obama’s join date, and the “Candidate Contract” which requires candidates receiving an endorsement join the Party–all these documents trump the faulty memories of former Party members. And please note that none of the people interviewed offered any explanation for the meeting minutes. They simply “had no explanation for the document.”
But I can offer an explanation for why these former Chicago New Party members, Dan Swinney and Amy Sherman, might be motivated to claim Barack Obama was never a member. Both Swinney and Sherman are Obama supporters. Sherman donated $301 to Obama for America last July. Swinney donated $250 to Obama in April of this year. Given a choice between showing the campaign was dishonest in 2008 or having a convenient memory lapse, it’s not hard to guess which option supporters of the President would find more appealing. For the record, I contacted both Swinney and Sherman and asked them to explain their understanding of membership. Neither of them responded.
Here’s a New Party ad which proudly announces that some of their members won Chicago primaries. Obama is one of them.
Obama’s Marxism has a lengthy history. He would have been a good little Bolshevik.
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