I went to the library and pulled up microfiche.
When I was younger, I used to research a lot. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I knew how to follow the multiple fibers of a subject and flip through a periodical index when I was in grade school.
The internet has made a lot of that unnecessary. But occasionally - like when you need to look up something that happened 16 years ago - you need microfiche.
In 1992, The New Party was formed by a couple named Sandy Pope and Joel Rodgers. They had many goals, some of which I'll address in a subsequent post. But the point is that Obama was a member of this party which was socialist.
There are two ways that the left has tried to blunt this chunk of information, which is unflattering to a presidential candidate:
- They've suggested that Obama was never a member of that party. This photo tends to suggest otherwise. Of course, I'm not familiar with "The New Zeal". I have no reason to disbelieve them, and there are things in the image that leads me to believe that its authentic. (There are moire patterns on the photo, which are not only indicative of a half-toned newsletter that has been scanned in, but suggests that the image was not photoshopped.) The archives of the New Party confirm that Obama was there for at least one of their meetings, and they claim him as their own.
- They've said that The New Party was not socialist, or that we have no proof that the New Party was socialist. Their archived website would suggest otherwise. But I wanted the silver dagger to that argument, which is what led me to the library.
Tommorrow, I commence with the second half of my research and my quest to connect the dots. But today I just wanted to reflect on the following irony: the thing that might sink the Democrats are the very magazines and articles that were written about them ten years ago... and our ability to read those words today.
If my research can add to that effort, I couldn't be more pleased.
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