Jeremiah Wright Can’t Be Explained Away, and the American People KNOW What’s Wrong
By SusanUnPC on May 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM in Barack Obama, DNC, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Indiana, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.
The numbers are devastating for Obama, and it’s clear that a fatigued Obama — deep down inside — knows it too, even as he portrays himself and his wife as ever the victims who somehow made it anyway:
Barack Obama was showing signs of campaign fatigue. Sitting on a picnic bench in a park on Pagoda Street, Indianapolis, in discussion with a group of 30 supporters, he told a story about the “modest” background of himself and his wife, Michelle. And 10 minutes later, seemingly having forgotten, he told them it all again. (The Guardian, UK, May 2, 2008)
Look at the results of this Rasmussen Reports poll — which was already clear to all of us here at NoQuarter (see “The Game of Expedience“). OBAMA may think he’s the victim of Wright, but the American people know better:
A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 30% of the nation’s Likely Voters believe Barack Obama denounced his former Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, because he was outraged. Most—58%–say he denounced the Pastor for political convenience. The survey was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday night. Obama made his statements about Wright on Tuesday.
… Only 33% of voters believe that Obama was surprised by the views Wright expressed at Monday’s press conference. Fifty-two percent (52%) say he was not surprised. …
Fifty-six percent (56%) say it’s at least somewhat likely that Obama “shares some of Pastor Wright’s controversial views about the United States.” That figure includes 26% who say it’s Very Likely Obama holds such views. At the other end of the spectrum 24% say it’s Not Very Likely that Obama shares such views. Just 11% say it’s Not at All Likely.
Just 7% of the nation’s voters agree with Wright’s views of the United States. African-American voters, by a 64% to 12% margin, disagree with Wright. Eighty-one percent (81%) of all voters are following the story somewhat or very closely. …
The American people GET IT. Of course, they see through the gauzy, forlorn, grim explanations from Obama. Obama gets it too.
From my story, “A ‘Bored’ Obama Is Distracted and Not Listening“:
[An] article in the New York Times, “Eyes on Blue-Collar Voters, Obama Shifts Style,” … revealed, according to “interviews with several associates and aides,” that “Mr. Obama was described as bored with the campaign against Mrs. Clinton.” Even Maureen Dowd has noticed that Mr. Obama has lost his “fizz.” While Hillary Clinton is more “more energetic and focused and beaming,” Ms. Dowd writes, Obama is “uneven and gauzy, often fatigued … [and even] his speeches don’t have the same pizazz.” Hillary Clinton is “bristling with life force,” while Obama “looks like he wants to run away somewhere for three months by himself and smoke.”
Obama-supporter Mayhill Fowler, writing for Huffington Post described the drained, unfocused, distracted Obama — in clear contrast to an energized, smart, policy-focused Hillary Clinton:
[...]
Did Senator Obama know to whom he was speaking? Likely not. That’s been his problem lately on the campaign trail–not knowing exactly where he was. He even made a joke about it in Hickory when he tried to recall where he had just met someone whose story he wanted to tell. “We were down in–where were we?” Quickly he came up with Winston-Salem, and everybody laughed. Monday in Wilmington, however, not only did he seem not to know Wilmington but the date and time, saying that it was “March” and “nine months to November.” The fact that his audiences are largely composed of die-hard fervent loyalists usually masks this underlying dis-connection.
But it’s worth noting that Senator Clinton always knows exactly where she is and to whom she is speaking. On Sunday in Wilmington, for example, her opening remarks touched in quick succession on several important things about the town: the glorious setting on the Cape Fear River, its connection to the military, the upcoming commissioning of the new submarine North Carolina there next weekend, and the fact that “this country has been very good to me and to many of you,” for people who are lucky enough to live in Wilmington are lucky indeed.
Hickory itself got short shrift. Indeed many of the people at the Obama town hall meeting weren’t from Hickory at all. Non-Carolinians from retirement communities around Asheville had driven over. As for the Tar Heelers themselves, they came, despite gas prices, from “three counties away.” …
[...]
Getting the nuances and particularities of a community just right [when his] life is in the campaign bubble. Not only do Senator Obama and his press entourage never really see towns like Hickory but they don’t see the opposition first-hand, as well. Therefore, Senator Obama has no idea that, despite whatever her campaign may be up to, Senator Clinton hardly ever mentions him anymore. Despite his remark to Hickory that he’s told his staff the campaign needs to get away from going negative, Senator Obama laid into Senator Clinton, … several times during the afternoon. At one point he said, “Lately the other candidates aren’t talking about their ideas–they’re talking about me.”
As far as Senator Clinton is concerned, nothing could be further from the truth. She presents more ideas on the stump than she has time for. This misrepresentation incensed a group of women friends in Hickory. They had seen Hillary Clinton several times in North Carolina and had come to hear Barack Obama before finally making up their minds. Scratch twelve votes for him.
“Don’t hit on Hillary.” Only the day before the Hickory event, Jean Weiss, a feisty eighty-two year-old, told Obama, when he called on her, thinking he would get a question, just that. Age admonishing youth, it was a powerful moment that the crowd much appreciated. That Senator Obama seemed to have forgotten Weiss only a day later may be a sign only of Wright-driven stress.
Often on the campaign trail, however, despite his frequent comment that as President he will listen to the American people, Barack Obama seems to hear only what he wants to hear. Given the mass adulation with which he is received now, audiences don’t seem to perceive Obama’s selective detachment. If Obama is the next President of the United States, however, the mainstream media as well as bloggers will be busy documenting the various scenes in which this dynamic manifests itself.
And, I repeat: This is the writing of a woman who is a supporter of Barack Obama.
Check out the full story in today’s The Guardian, “Fatigue and racism threaten to knock Obama bandwagon off the road.”
The subtitles?
· Controversial pastor is issue that will not go away
· Hopes fading for imminent end to Democratic race
Also from that Guardian article:
Tiredness is the least of Obama’s problems. After a relatively smooth and well-planned march towards the Oval Office, his campaign is facing its greatest crisis. “He is in the middle of a shit storm,” one of the journalists travelling with him said.
Race, as an issue, is now more potent and dangerous than at any other stage in the campaign. Public utterances since the weekend by his former Chicago pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright – including a claim that the US government developed the Aids virus to infect black people – have called into question Obama’s judgment.
Obama, having failed to renounce Wright in a speech in Philadelphia in March, finally cut ties with his former mentor on Tuesday but it may be too late for next week’s Indiana primary. …
As the Rasmussen polling shows, it IS too late. And the American people — no matter what the fools in the DNC may decide — will NOT forget this saga, and the racist, anti-American remarks by his 20-year pastor that Barack Obama failed to denounce immediately, let alone soon enough — like 19 years ago when he should have gotten up and WALKED OUT of that church.
by Ronald Scott
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