WHICH IS THE DIFFERENCE...:

Obama, Clinton Split on FISA Vote (Siobhan Gorman, 7/09/08, WSJ: Washington Wire)

Obama said he would work to eliminate a provision to grant conditional immunity to phone companies alleged to have participated in the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program, but amendments attempting to pare back or strip immunity from the surveillance bill were defeated Wednesday, as expected.

Obama won the nomination, in part, by running to Clinton’s left, but he has been tacking right since clinching the nomination in early June–which today landed him to Clinton’s right on the spy bill, which overhauled the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Obama’s own campaign Web site has become a hotbed of debate over his support for the compromise bill, spawning four groups in which opponents of Obama’s position vastly outnumber supporters—22,957 to 38. The “Get FISA Right” group blog on MyBarackObama.com was flooded with disappointed supporters after Wednesday’s vote, with more than 60 writing in within 90 minutes of the vote.

...between needing the looney Left to help retire your campaign debt and needing normal people to vote for you if you're to keep it competitive in the Fall. Change the nomination results and the votes would be reversed. Although, we can take him at his word that he worked to have the proviso removed. The result, after all, would be consistent with his other "work" in the Senate: ineffective.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 9, 2008 5:14 PM