I’m sure you’re as surprised as I am that the press missed a few things in 2008.
Stanley Kurtz got the minutes of the meeting.
In late October 2008, when I wrote here at National Review Online that Obama had been a member of the New Party, his campaign sharply denied it, calling my claim a “crackpot smear.” Fight the Smears, an official Obama-campaign website, staunchly maintained that “Barack has been a member of only one political party, the Democratic Party.” I rebutted this, but the debate was never taken up by the mainstream press.Recently obtained evidence from the updated records of Illinois ACORN at the Wisconsin Historical Society now definitively establishes that Obama was a member of the New Party. He also signed a “contract” promising to publicly support and associate himself with the New Party while in office.
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Minutes of the meeting on January 11, 1996, of the New Party’s Chicago chapter read as follows:Barack Obama, candidate for State Senate in the 13th Legislative District, gave a statement to the membership and answered questions. He signed the New Party “Candidate Contract” and requested an endorsement from the New Party. He also joined the New Party.
Consistent with this, a roster of the Chicago chapter of the New Party from early 1997 lists Obama as a member, with January 11, 1996, indicated as the date he joined.
Breitbart’s piece castigates Ben Smith for believing the campaign’s apparent lies, and for dismissing it as another right-wing smear.
I’m willing to give him a break on that. Sometimes, people are simply misled.
But now that there are records from the New Party itself, will Ben Smith correct the record?