Obama Not Really Hurt by Wright

An op-ed piece and an article in The New York Times over the past couple of days show that Obama's support among Democratic voters is not deteriorating as badly as is being portrayed in the media. The Clintonistas and the media have been crowing about Obama's loss of support since the Rev. Wright incident. As much as Obama has been trying to move past the divisive rhetoric of the Wright brouhaha, the media and Hillary Clinton have been keeping it at the top of broadcasts for the past five weeks.

New York Times columnist Charles Blow wrote about a "Blacklash" in his May 3rd op-ed piece about the Democratic nomination contest. Excerpts from the op-ed piece follows:

The rhetoric appears to be trafficking in old fears and historic stereotypes. The unspoken (and confusing) characterization of Obama is that he’s militant yet cowardly; uppity yet too cool for school.

The question is this: Have white Democrats soured on Obama? Apparently not. Although his unfavorable rating from the group is up five percentage points since last summer in polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, his favorable rating is up just as much. While a favorable opinion doesn’t necessarily translate into a vote, this should still give the Clintons (and the superdelegates) pause. Electability cuts both ways.

Many blacks are aghast that their extraordinary support of Bill Clinton in the past would be repaid by the Clintons with racial innuendo (in a Times/CBS News poll after the salacious 1998 Starr report was released, his unfavorable rating among whites climbed to 52 percent; among blacks it was only 10 percent). [Many] who stood by him then now apparently feel betrayed.

Recent polls by The New York Times and CBS News show that Hillary Clinton's support has eroded with the Black community far more than Barack Obama's support among white Democrats. The graphic below shows Hillary's support with Black Democrats has eroded by over 35 percentage points since last summer and took a real nosedive after the primary season began this year. In contrast, over the same time period, Obama's support among white voters has risen by 5 percentage points.

Each candidate has a core constituency that is needed for the election in November: Clinton's working class whites and Obama's Blacks and affluent whites. After the nominee is selected in Denver, the Democratic Party is going to have to do a huge PR campaign to bring the other's voters into the fold for the fall election.

Excerpts from The New York Times article on Rev. Wright follows:

A majority of American voters say that the furor over the relationship between Senator Barack Obama and his former pastor has not affected their opinion of Mr. Obama, but a substantial number say that it could influence voters this fall should he be the Democratic presidential nominee, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

At the same time, an overwhelming majority of voters said candidates calling for the suspension of the federal gasoline tax this summer were acting to help themselves politically, rather than to help ordinary Americans. Mr. Obama’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, has made the suspension of the gas tax a centerpiece of her campaign in recent days.

In the survey, taken in the days leading up to the primaries on Tuesday in Indiana and North Carolina, Americans were divided over the merits of the gasoline-tax suspension, which has also been backed by the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, and condemned by Mr. Obama as political gimmickry.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama spent the final Sunday before the two primaries debating the gas-tax holiday and other issues on morning talk shows and in events across Indiana.

Read the entire New York Times op-ed piece about the graphic here.

Read the entire New York Times article about Rev. Wright's affect on Obama's support here.


plez sez: i'm not a big fan of polls and celebrity endorsements. and even though the poll above doesn't reflect a loss in support, one would have to be deaf and dumb to believe that there was no loss based on Obama's performance in the pennsylvania primary. and if he was such a hot commodity, then he would easily win the primaries in Indiana and North Carolina this week.

i still contend that Obama is the strongest democratic candidate, but i cannot be sure that the Clintonistas don't have another couple of tricks up their sleeve to grab the nomination at the convention.

if Obama is not the democratic candidate against john mccain, then john mccain will be the next president. i'm not saying that Obama is a shoo-in against mccain, but i KNOW billary will never win because more democrats won't be voting for hillary than won't be voting for Obama!

Hillary Wins Pennsylvania

With her hopes of gaining the Democratic nomination fading with each successive day, Hillary Clinton's campaign limped out of Pennsylvania with a win over rival Barack Obama.

She is behind in the delegate count. She is behind in popular vote. She is behind in total states won. She is behind in money (she wasn't five minutes into her acceptance speech before she was groveling for contributors at her website). And even with this win, she gets no closer to winning the delegate race. But she's going to hang in there and fight on... Billary has been waiting eight years to return to Washington and they're not going to let a little thing like being behind in the race stop them.

Billary will not drop out of the race, she will forge on to Indiana and North Carolina for their primaries in two weeks. And when she loses those, she will still forge on until the last primary in June.

Read about the Pennsylvania primary here.


plez sez: the longer this campaign continues, the deeper the rift between clinton supporters (working class whites) and Obama supporters (Blacks & affluent whites). and more importantly, the longer this race continues, the more likely that one's supporters will not vote for the other in november, thus guaranteeing john mccain a cake walk to the presidency. as groundbreaking as this race has become (white woman vs. Black man), it is also fracturing the democratic party into billary democrats and Obama democrats. will one be able to energize the other's supporters to vote in november?

hillary won most of the big states and Obama won the rest. but democrats usually win the big states, it's the small states that elected george bush in 2000 and 2004. the democrats best chance to win the white house will be to ride Obama's crossover appeal and win some states that have been red in the last two election cycles: north carolina, georgia, virginia, alabama, mississippi, colorado, etc. big states like pennsylvania, california, illinois, and new york will vote for democrats (like they have in the last two election cycles).

mark my words... if billary stays in the race until june, the party will be in such disarray that i don't think either candidate will be able to beat mccain in november.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Endorses Obama

In an article titled "Barack Obama: Democrats deserve a nominee for change," the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has come out to endorse Barack Obama for the Democratic Party nominee for President.

Excerpts of the article follow:

On Tuesday, Pennsylvanians will have the unusual luxury of voting in a Democratic presidential primary that promises to be truly relevant. Like two opposing armies marching to a new Gettysburg, the forces of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton come to this latest battlefield symbolizing two views of America -- one of the past, one of the future. Pennsylvania Democrats need to rise to the historic moment.

For us it is the candidates' vision and character that loom as the decisive factors in this race. For as dissimilar as they are, the two share much in common. It starts with their mold-breaking candidacies. Whoever wins the nomination will vie for a special place in U.S. history -- to be either the first African-American or the first female commander in chief.


Although their backgrounds are different, they have come to the same conclusion, one now shared by many Americans, that the Bush administration has taken the nation on a profoundly wrong course both at home and abroad. The excitement that has animated this primary season -- the surge of new voters, the change of party registrations -- is an expression of the nation's hunger for change.

For as hard as they have run against each other, both candidates are united in running vehemently against President Bush and all his works -- another common theme that came out in their visits to the Post-Gazette editorial board on successive days this week. Sen. Clinton was the more explicit in her disdain: George W. Bush "is one of the worst, if not the worst, president we have ever had."

Not surprisingly, the policies they advocate have much in common and are generally the polar opposites of those espoused by the current administration.

~ ~ ~

On Iraq, for those inclined to remember, Sen. Clinton carries more baggage, for she voted to approve the war in the first place. For those inclined to forgive, she would seek to repair relations with allies strained by the Iraq misadventure, as Sen. Obama also would.

~ ~ ~

There is one last common ground for these candidates: They are both uncommonly smart, thoughtful and very well-versed in the issues. They care about people and they care about the workings of government. They are prepared.

Their strengths promise, in short, the one thing that the Bush administration has so shockingly lacked: competency. There will be no intellectually lazy president in the White House if either succeeded to it, no outsourced thinking to the vice president or the secretary of defense, no cheerfully shallow praise for unqualified political appointments, no enduring cause for embarrassment by the American people.

So forget all the primary skirmishing. Sen. Obama is every bit as prepared to answer the ring of the 3 a.m. phone as Sen. Clinton. Forget this idea that Sen. Obama is all inspiration and no substance. He has detailed positions on the major issues. When the occasion demands it, he can marshal eloquence in the service of making challenging arguments, which he did to great effect in his now-famous speech putting his pastor's remarks in the greater context of race relations in America.

Nor is he any sort of elitist. As he said yesterday in effectively refuting this ridiculous charge in a meeting with Post-Gazette editors, "my life's work has been to get everybody a fair shake."

This editorial began by observing that one candidate is of the past and one of the future. The litany of criticisms heaped on Sen. Obama by the Clinton camp, simultaneously doing the work of the Republicans, is as illustrative as anything of which one is which. These are the cynical responses of the old politics to the new.

Sen. Obama has captured much of the nation's imagination for a reason. He offers real change, a vision of an America that can move past not only racial tensions but also the political partisanship that has so bedeviled it.

~ ~ ~

To be sure, Sen. Clinton carries the aspirations of women in particular, but even in this she is something of a throwback, a woman whose identity and public position are indelibly linked to her husband, her own considerable talents notwithstanding. It does not help that the Clinton brand is seen by many in the country as suspect and shifty, bearing the grimy stamp of political calculation counting as much as principle.

Pennsylvania -- this encrusted, change-averse commonwealth where a state liquor monopoly holds on against all reason and where municipal fiefdoms shrink from sensible consolidation -- needs to take a strong look at the new face and the new hope in this race. Because political business-as-usual is more likely to bring the usual disappointment for the Democrats this fall, the Post-Gazette endorses the nomination of Barack Obama, who has brought an excitement and an electricity to American politics not seen since the days of John F. Kennedy.

First published on April 16, 2008 at 12:00 am

Read the entire Post-Gazette article here.


plez sez : i'm not overly impressed with endorsements by newpapers, pundits, or notable politicians. i have rarely used an editorial board endorsement to help me make an electoral decision. but in light of the obvious hatchet job being done in the media on Barack Obama to the benefit of his opponents (the rev. wright issue that still gets airplay and ink weeks after Obama addressed it, the elitist b.s. that was a non-issue to begin with, the lack of coverage about the racist remark by congressman davis of kentucky, the quick dismissal of hillary's bosnia trip lies, the USA Today's biased report about current and former lobbyists who work on the Obama campaign, etc.), it is good to see that there is a level of sanity and commonsense left on the editorial board of this newspaper.

i do not support Barack Obama because he is Black. i didn't support al sharpton. i've never support al keyes. and i didn't believe that jesse jackson was a serious presidential contender. all three of them are Black!

i am impressed by Obama's character, his intelligence and grasp of the issues, his - at times - non-traditional way of looking at issues based on his non-traditional upbringing, our shared values, and his position on issues that affect all americans.

since the first super tuesday, hillary clinton has gravitated into a race-baiting, lying, shrill, bitter candidate who has resorted to saying ANYTHING in an attempt to garner votes for her sagging campaign. BARACK OBAMA needs to be the democratic nominee in the fall or the democrats may've lost my vote (and the votes of others who think like me).