Posted on 03/19/2008 9:22:16 AM PDT by seanmerc
Will the Gospel According to Jeremiah Wright sink the Obama candidacy? Not very likely.
Let's start with two basic facts:
1. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has already won the Democratic nomination. It's over. Regardless of how the remaining primaries and caucuses go, including Michigan and even Florida, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) can never catch Obama in elected delegates.
His current lead of 170 pledged delegates will not be overcome no matter what happens. Even if Clinton beats him by 10 points in each of these primaries, he will still lead among elected delegates by over 100. The superdelegates will not override the will of the voters unless Obama is in jail. They will not let themselves in for a civil war by overruling a black man who is beloved by the young by going over the heads of the electorate and naming the candidate that lost the primaries as the nominee.
Regardless of how damaged Obama may be by the Wright tapes, it will not provide sufficient cover or cause for them to do so.
2. Wright's rantings are not reflective of Obama's views on anything. Why did he stay in the church? Because he's a black Chicago politician who comes from a mixed marriage and went to Columbia and Harvard. Suspected of not being black enough or sufficiently tied to the minority community, he needed the networking opportunities Wright afforded him in his church to get elected. If he had not risen to the top of Chicago black politics, we would never have heard of him. But obviously, he can't say that. So what should he say?
He needs to get out of this mess with subtlety, the kind Bill Clinton should have used to escape the Monica Lewinsky scandal — but didn't. As the controversy continues, Americans will gradually realize that Obama stuck by Wright as part of a need to get ahead. They will chalk up to pragmatism why he was so close to such a preacher. As they come to realize that Obama doesn't agree with Wright but used him to get started, they will be more forgiving.
While he lets this fact sink in, he needs to continue to distance himself from Wright by characterizing that kind of anger and animosity as a thing of a generation past. He needs to compare the progress of which whites are proud in discarding the racism of our forebears with his own pride at being a post-racial candidate. He needs, again and again, to reject what Wright says and emphasize his belief in America and the validity and morality of the American Dream.
As the controversy matures, he can increasingly depict those who fan its flames as trying to live in the past and re-fight the civil wars of race that have divided America.
All these themes were evident and articulately presented in Obama's Tuesday speech on race.
What Obama needs not to do is to resort to the kind of Clintonian fudging that animated his interview with Keith Olbermann. By saying “I wasn't there” and “I didn't know” and “I didn't hear him say it,” he will invite contempt and derision. If he were to continue in that vein, he would buy himself a controversy akin to that which drowned John Kerry in the facts and allegations of his service in Vietnam. People will surface to say, “I sat next to him, and Wright said such and such,” and Obama will be hostage to everybody's subjective memory.
But if he handles the situation with subtlety and lets what he cannot say — that it was opportunism that led him to stay in that church — sink in among the electorate, he can and will survive this battle.
And let's remember one other thing: The Democrats will increasingly realize that he will be their nominee and, in continuing this battle, they are eating their own.
and with John Gibson:
It would an outrage if Obama does get away with his affiliation with a racist pastor and church.
How would you know, toe-sucker. What a loon. THe truth is, Morris's columns are propaganda now too.
People who want to forget it will, those that don’t, won’t.
Maybe the media should be focusing on our good men and women who have fought valiantly (5 years on) and what a great speech from our President.
Conservatives need to stop listening to this idiot. The fact that he's writing for NewsMax only confirms what an absolute joke NewsMax has become.
LOL! No kidding. Morris does know liberal/democrat politics, but he is usually wrong on his predictions.
Sorry, Dick...not with me.
Liberals are in a free fall because they don't know how to handle this without being exposed as the hypocrites they really are.
I think he does, most obviously his wife does. And I think pointing this out is the way to go forth.
Little Dickie Morris doesn’t have a clue....
AOL is running a poll. The question is whether his speech resolved the “Wright Problem.” The results so far are 68% No, 26% Yes, and 6% Not Sure. The “Wright Problem” is not going away. The primary results in PA and IN will show that.
Those numbers from an AOL poll do not bode well for BO....
Rev. Wright is Obama's Spiritual Advisor. 'nuff said.
“Rev. Wright [Obama’s pastor] Row Will Pass Soon”
Unfortunately, probably true. Remember how the MSM flogged the “read my lips” comment by Bush 41 until it cost him the election? Only Republican hit jobs have nine lives; Democrat debacles have a very short life span. It’s one of the means the corrupt media uses to influence elections.
Dick, you are so wrong. You don't sit in a Church for 20 years and not believe anything the pastor is saying. You don't sit in a Church for 20 years and ask this pastor to be your Spiritual Advisor if you don't agree with him. You don't sit in a Church for 20 years and ask this pastor to officiate at your marriage if you don't agree with him. You don't sit in a Church for 20 years and ask this pastor to baptize your children if you don't agree with him.
This makes no sense.
Obama is a racist that has been taught by a racist.
Morris was saying last Friday this would stay with Obama.
Obama is damaged.
Make no mistake.
Now if the GOP have the balls to keep it stoked.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.