Barack Obama gains after denouncing pastor: poll

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama appears to be rebounding from sliding poll numbers in the wake the controversy over his former pastor, according to a CBS News/New York Times poll released on Sunday.

Among Democratic primary voters, the Illinois senator now leads opponent Hillary Clinton by 12 points -- 50 percent to 38 percent -- the poll found. Obama led the New York senator by 8 points in a CBS/New York Times poll released just a few days ago.

The latest poll was taken after Obama's comments last week repudiating Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who repeated statements that the September 11 attacks were retribution for U.S. foreign policy and that the U.S. government had a hand in spreading AIDS to harm blacks.

According to the poll, 60 percent of voters approve of how Obama handled the furor over the Chicago minister, compared with 23 percent who disapprove.

Clinton and Obama face voting contests on Tuesday in North Carolina and Indiana, the next steps in their battle for the Democratic presidential nomination to take on Republican John McCain in the November election.

Despite concern among Democrats about the potential damage to the party by the protracted Clinton-Obama fight, both are in a strong position against McCain, CBS said.

The poll found that in a general election Obama would defeat McCain by 51 percent to 40 percent and Clinton would defeat the Arizona senator by a 53 percent to 41 percent.

The poll also found that Americans were divided over one of the hottest issue in the campaign, a gasoline tax suspension. Forty-nine percent think lifting the tax is a bad idea, while 45 percent approve of the plan.

Obama has been hammering McCain, over his plan to offer voters a temporary "holiday" from the gasoline tax, and Clinton who also backs the tax suspension.

The poll of 671 adults, including 283 Democratic primary voters, was conducted Thursday through Saturday. The margin of error is plus or minus four percentage points. The margin of error for the Democratic primary voters is 5 points.

I posted this comment below on another thread. Please note that we haven’t heard a peep out of Preacher Wright since his dog and pony show last week, have we. That’s because this was all planned to make it look like Obama had separated himself from Wright. If Obama ends up President, Wright will be back in the Obama fold in the blink of an eye. I rest my case:

Something smells rotten in the Hood. Here’s my take on it. I think Obama and Wright are as thick as thieves, I think they are in total cahoots. I think everything that has happened in the past week has been planned and masterminded between Obama and Wright and perhaps one or two other key players on Obama’s campaign staff. I think everything has been coordinated.

Preacher Wright comes out and does his round of inflammatory speeches at the NAACP, and the Nat’l Press Club, and in his Bill Moyers interview. Funny that these three are all clustered within days of each other, all at once. As Obama blew his first chance at refuting Wright for his behavior for the last 20 years, both of them thinking the whole issue would die down, Obama needed a second bite of the apple. A second chance to condemn the Reverend Wright. Hence the setup. Wright does his radical religious/political rap thing three times, and Obama then says he’s finally had enough and condemns and refutes and sort of disowns (however if you listen to Obama’s words, he really doesn’t) Preacher Wright.

Now it looks as if the two of them are at great odds and no longer like each other, right? Wrong, in the sense that this was the desired end result, to make it look like they are now at odds. Mission accomplished. Obama is now off the hook. Obama even makes sure he has an out in the very careful, slow speaking manner with which he refuted his mentor. He says Wright may do more of the same kind of speech, but he, Obama, won’t be responsible for it as he can’t do anything to stop Wright, and has now disowned Wright anyhow. Isn’t this Machiavellian? Isn’t this fun?

Now for the proof of my thinking. Preacher Wright and Obama have known each other for 20 years, both in and out of the church pew. Obama went on Louis Farrakhan’s million man march. Obama named his book after a phrase used by Rev. Wright, “The Audacity of Hope”. They are very close. Obama knows exactly where Wright is coming from, both theologically and politically. And (here’s the kicker) vice versa. Wright knows everything about Obama too. He knows how Obama really thinks politically, after all Preacher Wright groomed him for the last 20 years, or perhaps indoctrinated would be a better word. Wright knows what Obama has said to him over the years, has done for and with him over the last 20 years, and has the goods on Obama big time. Wright could blast Obama into space and out of the presidential race on a politically dirty rocket in a nanosecond. Wright probably knows more about Obama’s inner workings, shady deals back in Chicago, connections to Obama’s political benefactor Tony Rezko now up on influence peddling and other charges back in Chicago, and may have been in on some of those deals himself. Wright could take Obama down faster than greased lightening if he wanted to. But he won’t. Because they are working in tandem. They are still joined at the hip, and what we are seeing this past week is all a charade, a Potemkin village, smokey (until that became un-PC) backroom dealings to get Obama out of hot water in the political short and long run for his relationship with Wright.

Mark my words here; my political antennae are waving in the breeze. And to top it off (I believe this is coming out of Obama’s camp too), the blogs are buzzing around that somehow Preacher Wright and Hillary Clinton are working behind the scenes to undermine Obama, and that Hillary’s camp was somehow involved in setting up financially some of what Wright was up to this past week. I think a whisper campaign of “it’s all Hillary’s fault that this is happening” has been let loose on the internet to shift the blame for Wright’s actions of late on her. How convenient. Obama isn’t behind this, why it’s Hillary. And the MSM are swallowing it whole. The MSM in general hate Hillary and will blame anything and everything on her. They will believe anything about her. Never mind, as I stated before, that Wright/Obama have a 20 year relationship, and that Wright could bring Obama down so fast his head would spin with what Wright knows about Obama and how he really thinks. Its Hillary and her henchmen to blame.

Obama and Wright must be laughing up their sleeves at how a naive and lazy press that is on Obama’s side anyhow in this race, will swallow this. Tell me, does anyone really think that Wright and Hillary got together to “get Obama”? Do you not think that Wright wants Obama in the White House where Wright can have all sorts of influence on his protege? That Wright wants to be kingpin at the National Prayer Breakfasts? That he wants all that access to grants or funding for his church causes? That he wants to push his own peculiar brand of church politics? His Black Liberation Theology? You better believe he wants Obama in as President. They both just have to get over this little speed bump of whether Obama secretly thinks just like Wright does, and is really a divider disguising himself as a uniter, fooling us all. Preacher Wright knows exactly where Obama is coming from. If he blows the whistle on Obama publicly on what he knows, then I am wrong. If Wright doesn’t, well, then draw your own conclusions. I’ve drawn mine.

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