Monday, March 24, 2008
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A Bad Idea, and a Squandered Opportunity
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Posted by:
Carol Platt Liebau at
11:54 AM
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Apparently in disagreement with much of the conventional wisdom, my Townhall column argues that Barack Obama made a huge (though understandable) strategic mistake trying to shift the national conversation from Wright to race.
And that's not all -- having made the decision to speak on race, he squandered a marvelous opportunity to say something that would actually have been new and hopeful; his supposedly "groundbreaking" speech was anything but. There's a way he can regain his footing, as I note, but it won't be easy.
What's interesting is that, although many voters are giving the speech good reviews, they seem to have lost confidence in Barack's ability to unify the country, as this CBS poll makes clear:
Sixty-nine percent of voters who have heard or read about Obama’s speech say he did a good job addressing the issue of race relations, and 63 percent of voters following the events say they agree with Obama's views on race relations. Seventy-one percent say he did a good job explaining his relationship with Wright.
When registered voters were asked if Obama would unite the country, however, 52 percent said yes - down from 67 percent last month.
Could it be that, like me, many voters were in reality less impressed with the speech than they knew they were "supposed" to be?
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Don't say I didn't tell you so.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/24 /BAL8VP5UA.DTL
I'm absolutely positive that all across this country African American churches were bemoaning the right wing attack on Obama.
Let the backlash games begin.
Way to cut off your nose to spite your own face.
Any notion that the Republican party is not racist is going to be dispelled and dispelled quickly.
If the Republicans had any political savvy at all, they would have avoided this issue.
You may win the battle against Obama , but you will most definitely lose the race war on this.
Democrats are going to call this a political lynching and blacks are going to agree.
When are Republicans going to learn that you have to pick and choose your battles as opposed to taking the moral high ground whenever and where ever?
This was one sleeping dog that had been sleeping for the last 20 years that the Republicans are going to regret severely for having kicked in the butt and woken up.
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Wow, liberal talking points abounding, but the fact is that Wright is a disaster for Democrats.
Prior to Wright coming to light (and again, we knew all about this guy in Chicago months ago) Obama was the candidate that "transcended" race. Now he's the racial candidate, doing to himself what Bill and Hill tried to do to him in South Carolina and failed.
He made it about race, but race isn't the issue here. The issue is 1) patriotism (How could any American go to a church where anti-American profanities are uttered in a House of God?) 2) Judgement (Senator Obama knew what Wright was, and still put him on an advisory committee) and 3) Character (Throwing Grandma under the train to try to draw a moral equivlency with Wright.)
In short, he will probably lose every primary from here to the convention, and even if he finishes with more delegates, the Dems will have to make some hard choices. Do they nominate such a divisive figure when the GOP has nominated a war hero noted for reaching across the ailse. |
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