Wambsgans/APRev. Jeremiah Wright
Posted on 03/23/2008 6:40:53 AM PDT by SJackson
Sunday, March 23rd 2008, 4:00 AM
Wambsgans/APRev. Jeremiah Wright
Despite their frantic efforts to one-up each other on issues large and small, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could soon find themselves sharing the same unhappy burden: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Unless one of them can find the courage and the sense to forcefully denounce the black pastor, Clinton and Obama both could end up watching John McCain get elected President.
Midway through the second week of the Wright fiasco, and five days after Obama tried to cool the boiling issue with an important speech on race, it is increasingly clear we are witnessing a Democratic train wreck. For months, the collision has been unfolding in slow motion as the closely fought campaign worked its way across the country and the chances for a clear winner slipped away one state at a time.
Suddenly, the wreck is happening at full speed. The dream team is looking like a nightmare.
Race was always a touchy subject, but not the dominant one, at least on the surface. Now there is no other issue.
With only 10 contests left, the campaign is turning on Wright's outlandish anti-American statements and Obama's tepid reaction to them. Obama seems flummoxed by the complexities of the racial polarization he promised to heal and the party is being divided in a way that could sink him. He's even making things worse for himself as his silver tongue has gotten tied in knots.
Polls in Pennsylvania and nationally show that Obama's otherwise-thoughtful speech last week failed to solve the political problem Wright created. Whites are shifting to Clinton or, in hypothetical general election matchups, to McCain.
For those voters, Wright is a clear yes or no question. Trying to split the difference, however amiably, as Obama did by rejecting Wright's most inflammatory comments while also sympathetically explaining them and equating them to white frustrations, created a muddle that has reinforced doubts about Obama's convictions and values.
In the short run, Clinton obviously benefits in the nomination fight. But she shouldn't get too comfortable. For Obama's problems with Wright will become her problems if she makes the same mistake of not being forceful enough about her own values. The same kinds of voters - working-class whites in swing states - who are shunning Obama will abandon her if she takes the standard, Democratic, politically correct course and coddles Wright and his poison.
As well they should. You can't be a President if you won't stand up to an anti-American bigot. More to the point, you can't become President by running against the country or having people around you who hate it.
It's a bright-line and the right answer is for Clinton to denounce Wright for saying, among other things, that the American government created the HIV virus to wipe out "people of color." So far, Clinton has ducked the test.
Instead, her campaign is said to be quietly arguing to superdelegates that Wright makes Obama unelectable against McCain. That's true. But Wright also will make Clinton unelectable if she can't stand up against him.
Of course, if she does, she could win the nomination but lose much of the key black vote for the general election. She is thus damned if she does and damned if she doesn't.
Although Obama leads in overall delegates and the popular vote, neither he nor Clinton will get the 2,025 majority of delegates without a big infusion of uncommitted superdelegates. That makes the remaining contests, starting with Pennsylvania on April 22, crucial in terms of momentum as well as delegates and total votes.
Clinton has a big lead there and Obama has compounded his Wright problem with more sloppy language. Trying to explain what he meant in the Tuesday speech by his reference to his late white grandmother's expressions of racial stereotypes, he called her comments those of a "typical white person." Even though his campaign rushed to "clarify" the remark, his words further undermine his calls for a postracial future.
If there is such a thing as a "typical white person," is there also a "typical black person"? And is Jeremiah Wright typical? What would grandma say to that?
As for McCain, he was off in Europe and the Mideast, meeting heads of state and dealing with global issues. As contrasts go, he couldn't hope for a better one. With his opponents stuck in the muck of race and gender politics, he looked like a man serious about being President.
That's my understanding, his other grandmother live in a hut in Africa, I'm sure he'll help her out one day. And his wife appears to be incommunicado as well.
She doesn't dare. Among the reasons, she and Bubba had James Cone for an overnighter at the White House.
They will likely also riot if Obama loses the general election. They may even riot in celebration if Obama wins the general election.
Speaking of pickles, the Clintons have been accused of not helping John Kerry very much during his run for the prez. It makes sense that they didn't because if he had won Hillary would have been SOL for 8 more years instead of 4. If Obama gets the nod (and its looking like he will) they are going to be in the same pickle....i.e. they need Obama to lose the general so Hillary can run again in 2012. However, even more so than than in 04, all eyes will be on the Clintons to see if they are truly supportive of the democrats......
This is entire election is one big horrific clusterf for conservatives. That's the bad news, the good news is that it is going to likely be the most entertaining election all time!
“I’m not sure she survived being thrown under the bus though.”
LOL, good one!
It might be more appropriate if you said, "Their chickens are coming home to roost".
Good stuff!
Not really. It's March, not October, the dem candidate hasn't been chosen yet. Should McCain attack Obama and Hillary becomes the candidate, he'll have solidified the black vote, for Hillary. I doubt McCain will engage even engage race or Obama's past, in favor of non-personal issues. Surrogates will handle it. Which is just as well, Obama is defective on on the issues.
That's funny. Everyone made it there at one time or another.
By the time this is almost over, Obama will be flanked by the worst gangsta scum borrowed from Cynthia McKinney’s entourage, demanding that white people vote for him or else there’s going to be trouble.
Shaping up to be the most entertaining one I’ve seen.
1st got interested in politics when I went to a Bobby Kennedy speech at Valley Junior College in Van Nuys Calif about 7 days before he was shot.
Been an avid follower since.
Was in D.C. in 72 ,73 and 74 while Nixon got the axe.
Was at the West Palm Beach board of county supervisors wiht my family for the Bush protest.
But so far this is fun.
Now to sit back and watch Denver become a police state.
Interesting reading (from a controversial source):
http://amren.com/ar/1999/12/index.html
(sorry, can't post a direct link)
- John
damn...you got posting fever this morning
He vacuous campaign lacks specifics because he is a die-hard socialist who could not get elected if the country knew who he really is. So he tries to be this empty vessel to carry vague hopes and longings for nearly eveyone - sure, almost anyone can long for “change” and “hope” and “unity” - so long as we don’t have to agree upon all of the changes to be made. Obama is the model of a demagogue.
Then don't be a Denny. Anyone lives in or near a black concentrated area should be very careful should this break out.
just use the brief section MR.
Way too late for that. Obama had his chance and instead gave an insulting and patronizing speech on "race" which included trashing his own grandmother.
Neo is ready for the Obama "lynching" on Nov. 4th.
There are some who go overboard defending the indefensible, and Kemp is one. He goes WAY too far in excusing the pathologies in the Obama camp.
OTOH, I think McCain is right to keep a certain distance from the uproar over pastor Wright . He would just put his foot in his mouth. He doesn't speak well enough to make hay out of it, so any comments from him would be counter-productive.
In any case, there's no need to pile on. YouTube has burned the words and images of pastor Wright into millions of minds now. YouTube has done the work the pubbies would never have done themselves.
The one who has shown the biggest "stones" in the campaign so far is Cindy McCain. When Obama's nasty wife started all this crap with her "proud-for-the-first-time" comment, Cindy got up and said, "I just want to say, I'm proud of my country." Think about it, that's all anyone had to say.
Hear hear
Mac probably is too PC but someone will nail it home and the media will pick it up again.
This may quell but it’s stuck to him....he can only be rehabilitated to folks who don’t care anyhow....like the media.
dang...O must have gotten to you SJ, you're being uncharacteristically tough about this stuff
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