Democrats assume Republicans are raising Obama's many questionable relationships in a desperation effort to salvage the election. You might think this is splitting hairs, but I believe the reason is that these relationships scare the daylights out of us.

Conservatives were very much opposed to Bill Clinton for myriad reasons, but with decades in elective office in Arkansas, at least he wasn't a stealth candidate. Though rumors and mysteries abounded, Clinton was hardly a blank slate who emerged out of nowhere.

Obama is different. He burst onto the political scene and has risen with such alacrity that even many of his supporters don't have a clue what he's about or where he would take America.

It's no wonder the conspiracy types are whispering that he's the Manchurian candidate. It's not as if he's embracing his past; it's more as if he's concealing it, and for good reason. People have a right to know just how radical this man is because America's destiny is in the balance.

I've always been extremely confident that no matter which party is in power, it can only do so much damage in four years because of the ingenious safeguards our Constitution contains to preserve the essential structure of government that maximizes individual liberty. But I admit I'm more concerned today.

The Constitution is only as reliable as the moral fiber of the people from which it derives its power and their commitment to good (and limited) government. That's why John Adams famously said: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

I'm not just worried that Obama will appoint leftist activist judges who will continue to rewrite the Constitution. It's that he wants to socialize health care, initiate a massive transfer of wealth via the Global Poverty Act and would intervene in foreign conflicts solely for humanitarian reasons when our national interests are not at stake. He obviously regards the tax code as a license to punish wealth and equalize incomes in the name of "fairness" rather than a means to raise revenue for essential government services.

Then there's the pervasive climate of financial fear today and what it portends for the potential usurpation of power by the next president. We've seen oil prices rise to panic levels. But oil concerns have been dwarfed by the global financial crisis, which has led Congress to delegate nearly carte blanche authority to the executive branch to navigate through it. The character and ideology of the person who occupies the Oval Office have never been more important.

As if all this weren't enough to culminate in a perfect storm for the next president to transform our system fundamentally, there's also an alarming atmosphere among many Obama supporters. They follow him in a cultlike trance, having no clue what he stands for or what policy meat he would put on his campaign bones of change and hope once in office.

Disturbingly, Obama's candidacy is inspiring certain youths to perform paramilitary drills in his honor, public officials to threaten criminal prosecution of those who criticize him, and attorneys purporting to be working for his campaign systematically to intimidate local election officials. With this mentality, is there any doubt the Obamaites would try to shut down conservative talk radio with the "Fairness Doctrine"?

Then there's the ubiquitously corrupt ACORN (under investigation in at least 10 states for possible voter fraud), which is terrorizing the electoral process with such a widespread assault that it truly threatens the integrity of this election.

The question is: Where does Obama fit into all of this? Was he a key lawyer for ACORN, as alleged? What about his alliances with anti-American leftist radicals?

I disagree with those who've said the most important issue concerning the Obama-Ayers connection is Obama's "judgment." The very word implies that Obama doesn't share and never shared Ayers' views. The crucial question is whether Obama is of like mind with such radicals.

National Review Online's Andy McCarthy reports that when Ayers "was given the opportunity of a lifetime, a $150 million fund to be doled out as seed money for the kind of programs he thought would advance the cause, the guy brought in to run it was Barack Obama -- with whom he worked closely on 'change' in the schools for five years."

And how about Obama's membership in the New Party, a radical leftist organization established in 1992 to push the United States into socialism by forcing the Democratic Party to the left, as reported by the American Thinker? Is it not imperative we learn the extent of this relationship and why Obama is trying to cover it up?

Does anyone doubt that if any Republican presidential candidate had a small fraction of the questionable alliances Obama has, he already would have been hounded into withdrawing from the race?