RALEIGH—Chairman Linda Daves, North Carolina Republican Party, made the following statement regarding the Super Tuesday primaries taking place today: 

“With Super Tuesday upon us, there is still much we do not know about how this election will play out.  However, there is much we do know.  We know that Democrats are running on change but recycling the same failed, liberal proposals as evidence of that change.  The Democrat candidates spend much of their time attacking each other but actually represent two sides of the same liberal coin.  Both candidates want higher taxes, big-government health care, and weakened national security. 

Barack Obama was elected to the Senate just three years ago and has been running for President nearly since he first arrived.  In that time, he has managed to pass only one bill through the Senate with his name on it.  Does that qualify as the kind of experience needed to lead America?  Barack Obama wants to be the candidate of change, but the only change we could welcome from Obama is a change from the standard Democrat party line.  Obama was voted the most liberal Senator in 2007 by the National Journal.   (Brian Friel, Richard E. Cohen and Kirk Victor, "Obama: Most Liberal Senator In 2007," National Journal, 1/31/07 http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings)  He earned that title by voting with Democrats 95 percent of the time during his Senate tenure.  How can Barack Obama reach across the aisle if he is so far left of center?

Senator Hillary Clinton also wants to embrace the mantle of change but one thing becomes clear as the once-inevitable candidate for the Democrat nomination struggles through primary after primary with no end in sight.  Even Democrats don’t trust Senator Clinton.  Why should they?  How can we trust someone who says that her health care plan is fiscally responsible but won’t even give a straight answer on the new bureaucracy it would create or how she will pay for the $110 billion it will cost every single year?  Senator Clinton expects us to believe that ‘there will be no new bureaucracy’ to run her health care plan, but in fact her plan dramatically expands the government and its role in our health care system and reduces choices Americans now have in their own health care.  Her plan would increase the power bureaucrats exercise over health care, instead of doctors and patients.  Senator Clinton claims to represent change but she is running on the same health care plan that the American people already rejected back in 1993.   

On Super Tuesday, Democrats see only a failed America, one in which we need to pay more taxes, depend on larger bureaucracies, and withdraw from the world stage.  The Republicans, on the other hand, have offered plans to keep our economy growing by letting Americans keep more of the money they earn; to make health care more available, more portable, and more affordable without handing it over to government bureaucrats; and, most importantly, to keep America safe from threats both abroad and at home.  No matter how the race takes shape after today, voters will be given a clear choice in November.  I am more confident than ever that North Carolina will help to elect a Republican President this fall.

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