Why did St. Obama vote against Sen. Dorgan's fair tradement amendment to protect American workers?

[jackson_dem]

Is Obama a "free trader"? If you don't want to thumb through his book, his voting record (identical to Clinton's--except on this very important amendment), his platform (softer on trade than Clinton's), pay $2,300 to hear Obama's real views using Wall Street code when the cameras are not "present", here it is from O's mouth in 18 seconds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTfJmz3GWeE&eurl=http://www.buckeyestateblog.com/obama_i_believe_in_free_trade

Background

-snip-

There's been an attempt by the Obama campaign to paint himself as somehow "tougher" on free trade than Clinton because of NAFTA. As I pointed out last week, though, the actual record of the two candidates on trade is virtually identical.

Last week, I mistakenly said was exactly the same because I was unaware of any daylight between their voting records. However, that statement was untrue. Like Clinton, Obama support fast-track authority for the President to enter into trade deals. Both support reforming NAFTA by calling on Mexico to have more environmental and labor protections so that American workers can fairly compete with cheap Mexican labor. Both voted in FAVOR of the Peru trade agreement; both voted AGAINST CAFTA.

On Sept. 15, 2005, the Senate considered an amendment offered by Senator Dorgan (D-ND) which, if approved, would prohibit weaking any law that provides safeguards from unfair foreign trade practices.

http://www.buckeyestateblog.com/obama_i_believe_in_free_trade

I have to add Obama did not oppose CAFTA on substance but rather voted against it in protest (or so he says...) because labor concerns about the transition to the new economy were not given adequate discussion time. Yes, he believed CAFTA was a positive for the US economy. Just words? He says this it was a net positive right right in his book...

The man, the myth, the amendment

Question: On the Amendment (Dorgan Amdt. No. 1665 )
Vote Number: 232 Vote Date: September 15, 2005, 12:17 PM
Required For Majority: 1/2 Vote Result: Amendment Rejected
Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 1665 to H.R. 2862
Statement of Purpose: To prohibit weakening any law that provides safeguards from unfair foreign trade practices.
Vote Counts: YEAs 39
NAYs 60
Not Voting 1

You can tell a lot by who else voted with someone on a bill. Which Democrats voted with Obama and against American workers and fair trade?

NAYs ---60
Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Allen (R-VA)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burns (R-MT)
Burr (R-NC)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Chafee (R-RI)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
DeWine (R-OH)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Frist (R-TN)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-NE)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Roberts (R-KS)
Santorum (R-PA)
Schumer (D-NY)
Sessions (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Talent (R-MO)
Thomas (R-WY)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
Wyden (D-OR)

Honor Roll who voted for protecting Americans workers from unfair trade practices

YEAs ---39
Akaka (D-HI)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Byrd (D-WV)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Craig (R-ID)
Dayton (D-MN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Graham (R-SC)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Nelson (D-FL)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Shelby (R-AL)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)


http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00232

[leftofcool]

1. Why indeed?

[jackson_dem]

3. I posted this three months ago. Guess how many Obamites could answer?

[goldcanyonaz]

22. Just a shot in the dark here, but I'm gonna go with NONE!

[jackson_dem]

26. DING! DING! DING!

You win a chance to ride on the Hope and Change express, coming to a bitter town near you!

[Tellurian]

35. "The Stealth Dirtbag Candidate"

[datopbanana]

46. i think its cuz everyone has you on ignore for your constant freeper attacks.

[redqueen]

2. You seem to be committed to believing that people don't know

that they're similar on trade.

For the brazilianth time... we fricking know.

And for the umpteenth time - when did Obama flat-out lie to voters, as Hillary has, about his support / lack of support for these agreements?

Thanks for READING the question... cause I damn sure don't expect an answer.

[jackson_dem]

5. They don't know. They actually think Obama is "fair trade"

Someone said this, I believe, in one of the other threads we were just in. You and other former Edwards supporters turned Obama supporters may realize it but the true believers, Obamites, don't, with a handful of exceptions.

When did Obama lie? When he says one thing to "bitter" folks who are "anti-trade" (corporate code for being opposed to 'free trade') in Pennsylvania and then another to fact cats at a private $2,300 a plate event at billionaire's row in San Fran (why do you think it is called billionaire's row?).

[redqueen]

14. Show me the quote

where he lied.

I've posted several that show that without any spin necessary, Hillary flat-out lied to voters.

Do the same or stop making false accusations.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

34. It isn't called Billionaire's row.

I've never heard anyone in San Francisco refer to it as such, and I lived there for years. In fact, I'd never heard that particular appellation until everybody and their mother started linking to that godawful Zombietime site.

Oh and gee, look at that, googling "Billionaire's Row" brings up a link to LGF at #4. Cause, y'know, LGF is a highly regarded source of information on San Francisco neighborhoods.

[LSparkle]

10. Absolutely! That's at the crux of this -- she isn't being straight

He's said he favors trade, but with standards that are ENFORCED. She
claims to have been "against" NAFTA but all evidence points to the
contrary. If she thinks it's such a good thing, she ought to defend
it, not just skate away, thinking we won't notice ...

[LSparkle]

4. As with all bills/amendments, we need to know the details

It could have been that there was something in the amendment he particularly
didn't agree with, or maybe he was hoping to vote in favor of another (more
acceptable?) amendment. I especially think of Chuck Schumer as having integrity
and he voted as Obama did; I'd like to know more about perhaps why.

[jackson_dem]

7. Even most of the DLC voted against it...

[Texas Hill Country]

17. Obama's vote allowed for importation of low paid foreign workers to rebuild NOLA, instead of giving

Americans good construction jobs.

[SaveOurDemocracy]

6. I'd like to know, as well.

:kick:

[NYCGirl]

8. Dorgan Likes Obama’s Trade Stance

North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan endorsed Barack Obama today, adding his name to the list of Democrats from red states that have endorsed the Illinois senator.

Dorgan said he joined colleagues such as Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius who are “really anxious to have a candidate on the top of the ticket who isn’t going to give up on a state before it begins.”

North Dakota voted for President Bush by a 63% to 36% margin over Sen. John Kerry in 2004, and Dorgan noted how his state had voted for a Democratic president just twice in the last century — for Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.

Dorgan credited Obama, who won 62% of the state’s caucus vote, with turning out twice as many Democrats as Republicans in the state’s Feb. 5 caucuses. “There’s something unusual happening here,” he said. Dorgan, who as a senator is also a superdelegate, said that he waited until after his state’s Feb. 5 primary to endorse a candidate in order to “watch the developments.”


Dorgan is close friends with former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle, one of Obama’s earliest backers, and has been one of the fiercest Senate critics of free trade, including the North American Free Trade Agreement. He said the fact that Obama “has always opposed Nafta” was a major factor in his endorsement.

In a conference call today, Dorgan blamed Nafta for turning a “very small trade surplus with Mexico into a huge trade deficit.” He pointed to Nabisco Corp.’s decision to move production of its Fig Newton cookies to Monterrey, Mexico, from New Jersey, saying it must have been cheaper to “shovel fig paste” in Mexico. Dorgan pushed last year to block funding of a pilot program by the Department of Transportation allow long-haul Mexican trucks on U.S. roads.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/02/27/dorgan-likes-obamas-trade-stance/?mod=WSJBlog

[MethuenProgressive]

9. If you put "whore" or "bosnia" in your title. more BO followers would click on it.

As it is, it has waaaaay too many words for the average DUbama.

[leftofcool]

11. Good idea

[NDambi]

15. hey those are good words..ha ha

[redqueen]

16. I can really see why people were trying to convince Skinner

that really, no... seriously... they're worse!

:eyes:

Shameless.

[Clintonista2]

12. K&R

[indimuse]

13. great post!!

thx! k&r

[uponit7771]

18. Obama NEVER said he was against free trade just against lop sided agreements that hurt Americans!!!

[sniffa]

19. Your use of "Saint" is offensive to Catholics

Way to look down your nose at a huge constituency of PA. How condescending.

[MethuenProgressive]

20. Not to this Catholic.

Not even a good try.

[zabet]

36. When the Obama supporters with Jesus in their

"O" sig-lines and avatars remove them, it won't seem so
hypocritical for you to complain about the use
of the word "Saint"

:hi:


K and R

[jackson_dem]

43. That sure silenced ignored!

[jackson_dem]

21. 185 views, no answer. They couldn't answer three months ago

Can they now, especially since Obama began masquerading as a populist when he got to Wisconsin?

[sniffa]

23. Well, I could be wrong, but it's possible

most have decided to stop feeding your needy, negative attention seeking threads.

Again, I could be wrong.

[MethuenProgressive]

25. They care more about bookbags and pantsuits. This is too deep for them.

Face it, if they were deep thinkers, they wouldn't be Obama followers.

[Justyce]

24. K&R, Obama quote on free trade:

Senator Obama: "I believe in the Free Market. I believe in Capitalism. I believe in Free Trade. I am not worried about us being able to compete anywhere on earth with American workers."

[jackson_dem]

27. Compare what he writes about free trade in his book with what Bill Clinton writes

Can you find a difference?

[redqueen]

29. I can find a difference in what they say to voters.

Show me where Obama said something as shamelessly untrue as "I was against it from the beginning."

Please.

Or you can just run around posting DING! DING! DING! after the posts that aren't so challenging. Whichever.

[jackson_dem]

31. Maybe she was. Were you there like David Gergen?

Have you written a biography on her like two people, including the anti-Hill Bernstein?

[redqueen]

33. You can't be that fucking stupid.

Learn, dammit.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5500041&mesg_id=5500236

[jackson_dem]

39. I have that clown on ignore

[Oregone]

28. Because he isn't a saint?

This is American politics. To be a likely presidential nominee, you're probably as dirty as they come (and perhaps may of committed ritual murder while being witnessed by a group of your congressional peers). Were just on a quest to find the less-evil one, I guess (or bow out of the process alltogether, which many are aghast to).

[redqueen]

30. Oh noes!

You're not going to play the stupid game? :P

:hi:

[jackson_dem]

32. Barack Obama has never cast a wrong vote

[PBS Poll-435]

38. If you can't make up your mind, If you can't take a stand,

Don't get trapped. Not This Time.

"Present!"

[jackson_dem]

40. But he did it because it was part of a strategy. Even when he was the only one to vote "present"

;)

[PBS Poll-435]

42. Well. If you can't see the Sun Tzu-like strategy,

:rofl:

[SaveOurDemocracy]

37. Kick

:kick:

[jackson_dem]

41. Still now answer yet they go on and on about trade without knowing St. Obama's record

[AX10]

44. K & R Jackson Dem, K & R!

[kiva]

45. K&R n/t

[cliffordu]

47. Blah de blah de blah blah blah. We got it, on to the next, please.