WASHINGTON — Barack Obama says that if he were president, he’d take politically courageous stands while forging the consensus needed to enact universal health care, immigration revisions, global warming legislation and a withdrawal from Iraq. His three-year record in the Senate, however, offers little evidence that he can do what he’s promising. His party was in the minority for his first two years, and in the third he began campaigning for president and missed lots of time on Capitol Hill. He was absent from or only partly involved in some key bipartisan efforts to head off stalemates on judicial nominations, immigration and Iraq war policy.
“He is asking us to believe he can do something he has yet to do,” said Michael Fauntroy, an assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University.
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