Posted on 03/20/2008 12:36:01 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democrat Barack Obama suffered in the polls Thursday after a much-acclaimed speech on race that, pundits said, had failed to defuse voters' anger over rage-filled sermons by his former pastor.
Waging an acrimonious battle against Hillary Clinton for the Democrats' White House nomination, Obama confessed to being bruised by the controversy surrounding his longtime Chicago preacher, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
"In some ways this controversy has actually shaken me up a little bit and gotten me back into remembering that, you know, the odds of me getting elected have always been lower than some of the other conventional candidates," the Illinois senator told CNN in an interview that aired late Wednesday.
"As a practical matter, in terms of how this plays out demographically, I can't tell you. And the speech I gave yesterday (Tuesday) obviously was not crafted to hit a particular demographic," he said.
Obama, the first African-American with a viable shot at the presidency, used his landmark address on race and politics to try to blunt the Wright controversy but also to elevate the debate to a higher plane.
On endless television replays of his sermons, Wright has been shown assailing US and Israeli "terrorism," calling on blacks to sing "God damn America," and alleging that AIDS in Africa was spread by the US government.
Many conservative commentators have fastened on Obama's refusal to disown Wright, whom the senator described as "like family," even as he condemned the pastor's incendiary sermons as "profoundly distorted."
A clutch of polls released since Tuesday pointed to an erosion of Obama's support, with white working-class voters and independents especially alienated. That could hurt him in the Democrats' next primary in Pennsylvania on April 22.
The latest Gallup daily tracking poll found Clinton pulling into a seven-point lead nationally over Obama, 49 percent to 42 percent. It was Clinton's first statistically significant lead over Obama in more than a month.
"The initial indications are that the speech has not halted Clinton's gaining momentum, as she led by a similar margin in Tuesday night's polling as compared to Monday night's polling," Gallup said.
The poll also found Republican nominee-elect John McCain benefiting from the Democratic brawling. The Arizona senator had an edge of 47 percent to 43 percent over Obama, and a lead of 48 percent to 45 over Clinton.
Another survey by Rasmussen gave Obama a favorable rating of 48 percent among voters. Just before the Wright videos emerged last week, Obama's rating was 52 percent.
CBS News poll numbers showed Obama still just ahead of Clinton among Democratic primary voters -- 46 percent to 43. But a month ago, his margin was far wider at 54 percent to 38.
"If the sort of figures we've been seeing in the past 48 hours persist, they will certainly play into the superdelegates' calculation," said Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former White House advisor.
With Obama only just ahead of Clinton after 46 Democratic contests, the nomination is likely to hinge on nearly 800 party elders known as superdelegates, who are free to vote as conscience dictates.
In public, the Clinton campaign has kept its distance from Obama's pastor problems. But The New York Times reported Thursday that the row was grist for her aides' lobbying of superdelegates.
"Mrs. Clinton's advisers said they had spent recent days making the case to wavering superdelegates that Mr. Obama's association with Mr. Wright would doom their party in the general election," the newspaper said.
The Clinton campaign did not comment on that assertion, but her chief strategist Mark Penn seized on the shifting landscape suggested in the latest polls.
"The more that the voters learn about Barack Obama, the more his ability to beat John McCain is declining compared to Hillary," he said in a campaign memo.
Obama, on CNN, insisted that before the Democratic convention in August, "we're going to have won more states, we will have a higher portion of the popular vote," and be poised to become the standard-bearer against McCain.
Check out the third graph in this piece. Obama is now officially the black candidate - just what the Clintons wanted.
His speech just solidified that he is of the “perpetually aggrieved” mindset,
and this is what he was supposed to be rejecting and getting over.
POOR baby....WORDS mean things.....and so do the policies you espouse.....chickens coming home to roost, all right.
I guess that Senator B. (whose middle name must NEVER be spoken) Obama can't distinguish between family and friends.
His comment that he cannot DISAVOW a blatant racist like Wright--anymore than he could disavow his race or his grandmother is one of the most INSULTING comments he could possibly have come up with!!!
Who (other than a liberal) would believe a comment THAT blatantly outrageous?
The honeymoon is over, and the MSM and Dem bigwigs are beginning to realize what I’ve been harping on since Super Tuesday. BOH is the weaker candidate in November for exactly the same reasons he is the stronger candidate in the Dem primaries. McCain can beat him. But if HRC gets the nomination, she gets the White House.
The fire hoses are turned on the Barry Obama campaign.
It looks like he's going to place the 'race card' more than once here.
I guess that playing it in the "I HAVE AN EXCUSE" speech wasn't enough.
The Wilder effect will beat him. I don’t see how the rats can give it to HRC, but I don’t see how they can give it to BHO either. As distasteful as I find him, McCain seems to be the only one in this race remotely qualified to be POTUS.
The "post-racial" candidate is now becoming the race-based candidate. Medved (and perhaps others, haven't read everyone's take) noted that BHO deliberately chose in his speech to move from being the trascendent candidate to the race-focused candidate. That which made him appealing to those with HOPE for a colorblind future was a fraud.
If you don't vote for me, you are a racist, says the junior Senator from IL. Not, if you vote for me, you vote for a future where race and gender and ethnicity matters not.
For me, of course, I would never vote for a socialist, regardless of pigment, surname or equipment between the legs.
BINGO! That's why we should not be happy about Obama's poll numbers. Only HE can defeat the witch.
Al Gore to the rescue?
If you want to divide this country EVEN FURTHER along racial lines---
Senator B. (whose middle name must NEVER be spoken) Obama,,,,and his nasty, angry, bitter, anti-American wife,,,
ARE THE RIGHT COUPLE AT THE RIGHT TIME!!
But the lib media told us this was Abe Lincoln reincarnate!
Barack [Redacted] Obama = BRO, or just plain old B-O.
Will AFP start identifying Obama as a Republican like they did to Spitzer??????
RACISTS!! All ya’ll be jus a bunch o’ haters. Da White man don wanna see da Black man suhseed....
Can’t we all just get along?
“Worsening polls reveal Obama’s pastor problem”
He has a worse drag-anchor than that. He’s Anti-American!
If the Clinton’s have one more bomb to drop it will probably come the week before or just after the PA primary.
I wonder what it will be. With Rev Wright, there is no telling what is in the closet.
Well, I have to axe you why you would say that?
Yeah, that’s how I see it too. So I wonder why so many around here express glee at BOH’s sinking ship. Two more weeks like this and the Dem superdelegates will start flocking to HRC.
Besides, it’s about NM, CO, OH, and PA. HRC does better there than BHO.
I guess Mccain can get along, he just fired a campaign staffer for distributing video of Wright’s rants.
Neither B. Hussein or Hillary can beat McCain in the general election. They just can’t. Neither is even remotely qualified for the job and their base is now split big time no matter who wins. The Republicans turn the tide just in time only to have Juan McCain as our candidate. What a way to go.
McCain is such a WUSS. He better take the gloves off and quit trying to make nice with these Democratic DEVILS.
And by conventional, you mean someone who hasn't sat under the teaching of a hate filled 'minister' for 20 years. . .right Obamie?
I be making a speech tomorrow to explain it; fer sho.
Media loved the speech.
A conservative who liked the speech:
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12925
Yet polls get worse.
This is another ‘elites vs people’ schism.
Ordinary people can smell this as political guff.
No, he’s playing the ‘victim’ card and I think Hillary beat him to it.
These liberals are really a bunch of wimpy cry babies!
I hope he gives as many speeches as possible and takes as much time as he needs to explain why he won't do that!!!!...lol
It aint over until its over.
Obama’s problems can give us more confidence, but polls dont have McCain above 50% and until he is, we are not out of the woods. Remember, our incumbent GOP President barely outdid the sonorous elitist liberal Kerry in 2004.
In 2008, we have economic troubles, overhang of Iraq and a huge money imbalance that favors the Democrats.
We can win. We can lose. History is yet to written.
On second thought, it's understandable when I recall this image:
thanks again, Jared
The pic on the left is no big stretch. The other three wouldn’t be holding their hands over their hearts if there wasn’t a camera present.
i think he will win anyway ...probably without trying.
this weirdo black church thing is going to bring obama down. middle america is going to (rightfully) find it creepy
I hope you’re right but fear you’re not.
Oh, so now he's a poor "victim" of people so racist they get upset about his close relation with a racist pastor. Cry me a river!
Al Gore to the rescue?
That’s not a rescue but a sinking if AlGore shows up...
He can't be seen doing this. Then it becomes a McCain "smear campaign", even though the truth is not a smear. Let people who are unaffiliated with him do it. We have plenty of conservative 527's who will do what's needed. There are some independents who might vote for McCain but won't actually turn out to vote if they see him going after the opposition too vigorously.
Is this underhanded? Absolutely not - it's no more than truth-telling. And it's not so much pro-McCain as it is anti-Obama. It's in a way pro-anyone other than Obama, including Clinton. If Clinton had attended a church with a KKK member as pastor for two decades who spent that time issuing sermons cursing blacks and Uncle Sam alike while alleging a Pearl Harbor conspiracy, would she still be a serious contender for president?
Good point. Presidential elections are now a game of inches. They will probably remain so for foreseeable future. It's gonna be close no matter what happens (although we may have an extra edge if the Obama gains the nomination).
I can’t remember, when was it that Michelle Obama said she was finally proud to be an American? Is that what she said....sorry my memory is failing.
“McCain can beat him. But if HRC gets the nomination, she gets the White House.”
Rush Limbaugh will be to blame if Hillary gets the White House. I don’t know how that guy will be able to live with himself, but at least it explains some of his personal problems, the guy has issues, telling people to switch parties and vote for Hillary in the primaries, I mean really, he has some issues. He’s not as together as he would like people to believe, he is very full of himself. I am very disgusted with him, he seems like a damned racist. Hillary is by far worse then Obama, there is no excuse for what Rush is doing.
Obama is Al Sharpton with a smile.
He treats Dems better than Republicans.
Good. Means folks are awake or awakening.
they are both weak. ANyone on this forum voting for Hillary is deranged...
I think he’s smart NOT to get into this fray and keep it on the issues. McCain cannot win vs Obama if it comes down to attacking Obama personally.
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