David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His twice-weekly commentary is distributed by Creators Syndicate. I am sincerely worried that if Obama wins, the checks and balances incorporated into our Constitution may not be enough to prevent a radical and irreversible diminution of our individual liberties because a confluence of factors has emerged to create a climate conducive to fundamental change.

These factors are: a shockingly unknown candidate, whose mysterious past and numerous shady alliances are deliberately left unexplored by a corrupt, supportive media; the candidate's charismatic qualities that inspire a cultish loyalty; his intellectual trappings that create a fascination and allure among the intellectual elite, including some hypnotized conservatives; a major financial crisis that exacerbates the people's fears and uncertainties; a largely manufactured cloud of negativity placed over America by the media and a grossly partisan Democratic Party that places its selfinterest above the national interest; and an apparently discredited Republican Party and conservative movement that have been blamed for our actual and perceived problems.

All these could lead to entrusting this man with unprecedented power, giving him a license to operate with minimum scrutiny and an opposition party effectively impotent to oppose his radical blueprint.

More than ever, perception is trumping reality. An unprincipled Democratic Party, aided by a morally decadent media, has demonized President Bush, the Republican Party and America itself with distortions and polarizing propaganda designed to dispirit and divide Americans on the bases of race, class and gender. Just look at the domestic and foreign policy picture they have painted the past eight years.

While we are having serious financial problems now, we had a strong economy for most of President Bush's two terms, but the media pushed the Democrats' critique that it was in perpetual recession. As for our real financial crisis, objective observers understand Democratic programs and policies primarily caused it, but Democrats have blamed Republicans.

Similarly, despite our problems in Iraq, we are clearly winning there now, but the media are suppressing the good news, just as they have refused to credit Republicans for their wisdom on the surge and protected Democrats from their reckless opposition to it.

The only arrow left in the Democrats' Iraq quiver is to perpetuate their "big lie" that Bush led us into war with lies about WMD. Through numbing repetition broadcast by a conspiratorial media, they have succeeded in making this the majority narrative, even though anyone who lived through this period knows Democrats supported the policy as long as it was politically expedient, having had access to the same intelligence. They've also convinced people, contrary to the facts, that Saddam Hussein didn't have ties to and wasn't abetting our terrorist enemies. And they've completely ignored the many other compelling reasons justifying our bipartisan decision to attack Iraq, including Saddam's persistent and ongoing violations of some 17 U.N. and postwar resolutions and treaties.

Democrats and the media colluded to publish the slander that the Bush administration sponsored abuses at Abu Ghraib, created inhumane conditions at Gitmo, and routinely tortured enemy prisoners. Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama have blithely and falsely accused our troops of atrocities, from systematic torture and prisoner abuse to raping Iraqi civilians to air raiding Afghan villages. They have mischaracterized National Security Agency monitoring of international terrorist communications as spying on little old ladies.

They have portrayed the Bush administration's phenomenal accomplishment of preventing further attacks on our soil since 9/11 not as a success but as proof that we no longer face a serious threat.

All these factors could coalesce to give Obama a mandate to fundamentally move our economy toward socialism in the name of economic fairness and emasculate our war on terrorists in the name of restoring our international image.

Would Obama win if people believed he might well nationalize health care, unilaterally disarm our nuclear weapons, push the Global Poverty Act, appoint judges to the left of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, pass legislation banning handguns, greatly increase federal spending by euphemistically disguising it as a stimulus package, increase taxes on producers and expand "redistribution," impose limitations on private executive salaries, empower labor unions, further nationalize public education with the leftist indoctrination agenda of the National Education Association, further open our borders, ratify the Kyoto climate change treaty, abandon Israel, retreat and surrender in Iraq, dramatically reduce the defense budget, possibly reinstate the draft in the name of racial equity, nationalize our private 401(k) funds, abuse governmental power to target and investigate dissent from ordinary "Joes," and implement the Fairness Doctrine to shut down political dissent from his talk radio critics?