More evidence ties Obama to socialist party'

Obama was blunt about his desire to move' Democrats 'off the cautious center'

Posted: October 21, 2010

By Aaron Klein

© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Yet more evidence has emerged tying President Obama to the New Party, a Marxist-led socialist party that sought to infiltrate the Democratic Party and push it so far leftward it ultimately would become a socialist organization.


John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine, recalled speaking with Obama at New Party events in the 1990s.

"When we spoke together at New Party events in those days, he was blunt about his desire to move the Democratic Party off the cautious center where Bill Clinton had wedged it," wrote Nichols in a January 2009 piece published at Progressive.org.

Nichols' recollection of Obama's "desire" to move the Democratic Party leftward matches the goal of the New Party, which was a 1990s socialist electoral alliance that aimed to transform the Democratic Party to ultimately form a new political party with a socialist agenda.

While running for the Illinois state Senate in 1996 as a Democrat, Obama actively sought and received the endorsement of the New Party, according to confirmed reports during the 2008 presidential campaign.

WND previously reported on newspaper evidence showing Obama was listed as a member of the New Party.

The New Party worked alongside the controversial Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

In his piece, Nichols referenced quotes from Obama at a 2008 town hall meeting in suburban Atlanta where the politician labeled himself a "progressive."

Wrote Nichols: "Barack Obama knows exactly what it means to say he is a 'progressive.' When he does so, he is not merely avoiding the word 'liberal,' as the sillier of his rightwing critics like to claim. Obama actually understands the subtle nuances of the American left.

"This is a man who moved to Chicago to be part of the political moment that began with the 1983 election of leftie Congressman Harold Washington as the city's first African American mayor, who studied the organizing techniques of Saul 'Rules for Radicals' Alinsky, who worked with proudly radical labor leaders to defend basic industries and avert layoffs, who used his Harvard-minted legal skills to fight for expanded voting rights, who was mentored by civil libertarian legislator and federal judge Abner Mikva, who discussed the intricacies of Middle East policy with Edward Said and Rashid Khalidi, and who learned about single-payer health care from his old friend and neighbor Dr. Quentin Young, the longtime coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program.

"And, famously, Obama did not just make anti-war sounds before Iraq was invaded, he appeared at an anti-war rally in downtown Chicago with a 'War Is Not an Option' sign waving at his side."

Nichols authored a 2004 book with avowed Marxist Robert W. McChesney, founder of Free Press, a George Soros-funded organization with close ties to the White House that petitions for more government control of the news media.

WND previously reported Free Press published a study advocating the development of a "world class" government-run media system in the U.S.

In May, WND reported Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott was named a policy adviser for innovation at the State Department.

McChesney is a professor at the University of Illinois and former editor of the Marxist journal Monthly Review.

He has argued for the dismantlement of the U.S. capitalist system.

"In the end, there is no real answer but to remove brick-by-brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles," wrote McChesney in a 2009 column.

The board of Free Press, meanwhile, has included a slew of radicals, such as Obama's former "green jobs" czar Van Jones, who resigned after his founding of a communist organization was exposed.

Obama's "Internet czar," Susan P. Crawford, spoke at a May 14, 2009, Free Press summit in Washington, D.C., called "Changing Media," revealed the book "The Manchurian President." Crawford's pet project OneWebNow lists as "participating organizations" Free Press and ACORN.

Crawford and Kevin Werbach, who co-directed the Obama transition's Federal Communications Commission review team, are advisory board members at Public Knowledge, a Soros-funded public-interest group. Public Knowledge advisory board member Timothy Wu also is chairman of the board for Free Press.

Like Public Knowledge, Free Press has received funds from Soros' Open Society Institute.

Obama listed as socialist party member

Obama's campaign in 2008 denied the then–presidential candidate was ever an actual member of the New Party.

But print copies of the New Party News, the party's official newspaper, show Obama posing with New Party leaders, listing him as a New Party member and printing quotes from him as a member.

The party's spring 1996 newspaper boasted: "New Party members won three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary).

The paper quoted Obama saying, "These victories prove that small 'd' democracy can work."

The newspaper lists other politicians it endorsed who were not members but specifies Obama as a New Party member.

New Ground, the newsletter of Chicago's Democratic Socialists of America, reported in its July/August 1996 edition that Obama attended a New Party membership meeting April 11, 1996, in which he expressed his gratitude for the group's support and "encouraged NPers (New Party members) to join in his task forces on voter education and voter registration."

The New Party, established in 1992, took advantage of what was known as electoral "fusion," which enabled candidates to run on two tickets simultaneously, attracting voters from both parties. But the New Party went defunct in 1998, one year after fusion was halted by the Supreme Court.

According to documents from the Democratic Socialists of America, the New Party worked with ACORN to promote its candidates. ACORN, convicted in massive, nationwide voter fraud cases, was a point of controversy for Obama during his campaign for president.

In 1995, the DSA's New Ground newsletter stated, "In Chicago, the New Party's biggest asset and biggest liability is ACORN.

Founder recalls Obama in New Party

In August 2009, a former top member of the New Party recounted in a WND e-mail interview Obama's participation with his organization.

"A subcommittee met with (Obama) to interview him to see if his stand on the living wage and similar reforms was the same as ours," recalled Marxist activist Carl Davidson.

"We determined that our views on these overlapped, and we could endorse his campaign in the Democratic Party," Davidson said.

Davidson was a Chicago member and activist within the New Party. He told WND he handled some of the New Party member databases and attending most of the party's meetings.

Davidson is also a notorious far-left activist and former radical national leader in the anti-Vietnam War movement. He served as national secretary for the infamous Students of a Democratic Society anti-war group, from which the Weather Underground domestic terrorist organization later splintered.

Davidson remembers Obama attending a New Party meeting to thank attendees for voting for him.

Davidson said that to his knowledge Obama was not a member of the New Party "in any practical way" – using qualifying language.

Becoming a New Party member requires some effort on behalf of the politician. Candidates must be approved by the party's political committee and, once approved, must sign a contract mandating they will have a "visible and active relationship" with the party.

Asked whether Obama signed the New Party contract, Davidson replied there was "no need for him to do so."

"At the end of our session with him, we simply affirmed there was no need to do so, because on all the key points, the stand of his campaign and the New Party reform planks were practically the same," Davidson told WND.

Davidson denied the New Party was specifically a socialist party, claiming, "The vast majority of active members were low- and middle-income blacks in the inner city fighting for their immediate demands."

But the socialist-oriented goals of the New Party were enumerated on its old website.

Among the New Party's stated objectives were "full employment, a shorter work week and a guaranteed minimum income for all adults; a universal 'social wage' to include such basic benefits as health care, child care, vacation time and lifelong access to education and training; a systematic phase-in of comparable worth and like programs to ensure gender equity."

The New Party stated it also sought "the democratization of our banking and financial system – including popular election of those charged with public stewardship of our banking system, worker-owner control over their pension assets [and] community-controlled alternative financial institutions."

Many of the New Party's founding members were Democratic Socialists of America leaders and members of Committees of Correspondence, a breakaway of the Communist Party USA.

Obama attended several DSA events and meetings, including a DSA-sponsored town hall meeting Feb. 25, 1996, entitled "Employment and Survival in Urban America." He sought and received an endorsement from the DSA.

Asked by WND whether he thought Obama has socialist leanings, Davidson stated, "The truth is that Obama was and is a liberal Democrat and an Alinskyist community organizer – which if you know much about Alinsky, is just militant liberalism."

"Obama was never a man of the left, either in his views or in being a member of an actual socialist organization," added Davidson.


With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott