As Scott Johnson notes, the Obama campaign is sinking fast. Unless Senator Obama moves quickly and decisively to completely repudiate Reverend Wright, his fall campaign will be doomed. (And even a complete repudiation of Wright may not save the nomination if Hillary Clinton stays to her own course and begins to talk about Michelle Obama's vision of America for the rest of the primary season.)
The audio and transcripts of Pastor Wright's 9/16/01 and 4/13/03 sermons are here.
The result of the combination of Senator Obama's "bitter" comments and Pastor Wright's and Michelle Obama's speeches and Hillary's decision to go negative on Obama? From AP:
Democratic Party members increasingly dislike the contender they are not supporting in the bruising nomination fight, an Associated Press- Yahoo News survey and exit polls of voters show. That is raising questions about how faithful some will be by the November general election.
In the AP-Yahoo poll—which has tracked the same 2,000 people since November—Barack Obama supporters with negative views of the New York senator have grown from 35 percent in November to 44 percent this month, including one-quarter with very unfavorable feelings.
Those Obama backers who don't like Hillary Rodham Clinton say they would vote for Republican candidate John McCain over her by a two-to- one margin, with many undecided.
As for Clinton supporters, those with unfavorable views of Obama have grown from 26 percent to 42 percent during this same period—including a doubling to 20 percent of those with very negative opinions.
And we thought Dean '04 was a train-wreck.
"He does not speak for me," Obama said yesterday, referring to Wright. "He does not speak for the campaign. He may make statements in the future that don't reflect my values or concerns."
The obvious questions: Why did Barack Obama stay in Wright's church for 20 years? And Michelle Obama certainly speaks for him --what about her "moving the bar" speech?
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