According to Peter Brown, the director of Quinippiac’s polling, history shows that Democrats have long had trouble with white voters. He makes his case in this WSJ op-ed.

For those voters, especially ones without college degrees, the fact that Sen. Obama is black may not be as much a disqualifier as his background as a Democrat from the Frost Belt with no national security or executive experience and a voting record judged by the nonpartisan National Journal as the Senate’s most liberal during 2007.

Yet, the focus on Sen. Obama’s relative weakness among the white working class has become the hot topic among many who say racial bias explains it. Of course it would be naive to believe that race is not a factor in America today. But that doesn’t necessarily mean Mr. Obama’s relative weakness among white voters is solely, or even mainly, due to the fact that he is black and that three quarters of voters this year will be white.

Why would anyone think that policies matter? Obama’s troubles with white working class voters has far more to do with the fact that he’s the most underqualified major party candidate in my voting lifetime. OLet’s not forget that white working class voters haven’t forgotten (or forgiven) Obama for his SF fundraising speech, either. (continue reading post »)

Rev. Eugene Rivers told the Boston Globe that it was inevitable that Sen. and Mrs. Obama would leave TUCC. I agree, though I suspect for different reasons. Here’s what Rev. Rivers said:

Rivers said on MSNBC that it must have been a “very difficult, heartwrenching decision” for Obama, who announced over the weekend that he and his wife Michelle are leaving Trinity United Church of Christ, where he became a Christian, where they were married, and where their two daughters were baptized.

“It was inevitable given the current political context,” said Rivers, who has added his commentary to many of the religious controversies this presidential campaign.

I agree with Rev. Rivers that it must’ve been a “very difficult, heartwrenching decision.” What I don’t get is what “the current political context” had to do with Sen. and Mrs. Obama leaving. They shouldn’t have stayed there in the first place, regardless of the current political context. Rev. Rivers doesn’t explain why politics should play a role in choosing a church. The fact that it was a consideration speaks loudly about the Obamas’ decisionmaking process.

Technorati Tags: Eugene Rivers, Obama, TUCC, Michelle Obama, Chicago Politics, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

If you read Sen. Obama’s quotes in this Politico.com article, you’d swear that the only reason he left TUCC is for the shut-ins. here’s a specific quote I’m referring to:

Obama said he also regrets “all the attention that my campaign has visited on” the church.

“We had reporters grabbing church bulletins and calling up the sick and the shut-in,” he said. “That’s just not how people should have to operate in their church.

Puhleeze. Sen. Obama left TUCC because it was the only viable political option after Father Michael Pfleger unleashed a racist diatribe against Hillary that would’ve made Jeremiah Wright proud. It’s insulting to hear Obama spin his leaving TUCC as anything other than politically expedient. This wasn’t a profile in courage. This wasn’t proof of Obama being the post-racial, post-partisan politician. This was Obama being who he really is: a typical Chicago machine politician that had the misfortune of living in the YouTube era. (continue reading post »)

Based on this op-ed, it’s safe to say that Geraldine Ferraro won’t be writing a check to the Obama campaign anytime soon. Here’s how she tied into the Toy Messiah:

Here we are at the end of the primary season, and the effects of racism and sexism on the campaign have resulted in a split within the Democratic Party that will not be easy to heal before election day. Perhaps it’s because neither the Barack Obama campaign nor the media seem to understand what is at the heart of the anger on the part of women who feel that Hillary Clinton was treated unfairly because she is a woman or what is fueling the concern of Reagan Democrats for whom sexism isn’t an issue, but reverse racism is.

The reaction to the questions being raised has been not to listen to the message and try to find out how to deal with the problem, but rather to denigrate the messenger. Sore loser, petty, silly, vengeful are words that have dominated the headlines. But scolding and name calling don’t resolve disputes. The truth is that tens of thousands of women have watched how Clinton has been treated and are not happy. We feel that if society can allow sexism to impact a woman’s candidacy to deny her the presidency, it sends a direct signal that sexism is OK in all of society.

While I think Ms. Ferraro is being a bit melodramatic, she raises a valid point about how Sen. Obama has used words to belittle Hillary. His use of words like petty, silly and others is flippant and disrespectful. (continue reading post »)

The Hill magazine is reporting that Sen. Obama has left the church he vigorously defended just 3 short months ago. Here’s what they’re saying:

Democratic front runner Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), weathering the storm from another controversial pastor, resigned from his church Saturday.

The senator is leaving Trinity United Church of Christ after remarks made by Father Michael Pfleger surfaced last week showing the Catholic priest mocking Obama’s rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.).

Earlier this year, Obama was hurt by inflammatory remarks made by his longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and his handling of the controversy.

My question is simple: What’s Sen. Obama’s motivation for leaving TUCC? To the unbiased observer, it appears as though he’s essentially leaving for political considerations. Shame on him for that.

Here’s another question national journalists aren’t asking: Why didn’t Sen. Obama leave when he saw his fellow congregants dancing and applauding during Jeremiah Wright’s racist sermons? A truly post-racial, postpartisan politician would’ve left long before the YouTube videos appeared. That’s allegedly what drove Oprah from TUCC.

Why should we believe that Sen. Obama is a post-racial, postpartisan politician? What proof do we have that verifies his claims? I’d suggest that they don’t exist. I’d further suggest that a truly post-racial, postpartisan politician wouldn’t have stayed at TUCC for essentially political reasons.

Sen. Obama only got upset with Jeremiah Wright when Wright embarrassed him at the National Press Club. That tells me that Sen. Obama didn’t take offense with Jeremiah Wright’s words until they were directed at him. After all, churches are one of the places where you ‘vote with your feet’. In that instance, words don’t mean much.

Obviously, Sen. Obama’s apologists in the national media will say that this proves Sen. Obama is beyond partisanship.

Quite he contrary. He’s proven that it’s all about politics with him.

Technorati Tags: Obama, Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, Hillary, TUCC, Partisanship, Oprah, Racism, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

That’s the conclusion Michael Barone draws from the exit polling from Kentucky and West Virginia. ese are the key paragraphs from his column:

Now West Virginia and Kentucky are not typical primary states. They, together with Arkansas, where Hillary Clinton was first lady for 12 years, were Obama’s weakest states in this year’s primaries. And some percentage of registered Democrats in these states have been voting Republican in recent presidential elections. Nevertheless, the negative verdict these voters render on Obama’s honesty and his relationship with Wright is likely to be typical of some significant quantum of potential Democratic voters this year. And not just in states like West Virginia and Kentucky, which he will certainly lose, but in marginal states which he must carry in order to be elected.

I find confirmation from this in a recent focus group conducted for the Annenberg Public Policy Center by pollster Peter Hart (for whom I worked for seven years) of non-primary voters in Charlottesville, Va. As Hart and Alex Horowitz note in their analysis of reactions to Obama, “When asked to recount any two memories of the total presidential campaign so far, seven of the 12 participants cite Rev. Wright by name. So far, clips of Rev. Wright clearly are the one ‘key defining moment’ of this campaign.”

Most reporters are liberals, whose circles of friends and acquaintances have included people with views not dissimilar to those of Wright or William Ayers, the unrepentant Weather Underground bomber with whom Obama served on a nonprofit board and at whose house his state Senate candidacy was launched. Such reporters don’t find these views utterly repugnant or particularly noteworthy. But most American voters do. And they wonder whether a candidate who associates with such people agrees with them, or disbelieve him when he says he doesn’t.

It’s been three months since the Wright tapes appeared. It’s been a month since Sen. Obama denounced Jeremiah Wright. Still, more people don’t trust Sen. Obama now than they did at the start of this process. In fact, I wonder how badly he’d get beat if the Wright tapes came out a month before the Iowa Caucuses. (continue reading post »)

Though Howard Dean wants all his problems to disappear, that won’t happen now that the Florida Democratic Party filed a lawsuit against the DNC for disenfranchising their voters. This comes just a day after Hillary threatened to take that fight straight to the Convention in Denver.

Florida’s history of discrimination against African Americans should force the national Democratic Party to count all of the state’s delegates at its national convention, a federal lawsuit filed Thursday claims.

The suit, filed by state Senate Democratic Leader Steve Geller and two other Democrats, claims that the federal Voting Rights Act prohibits the national party from stripping the state of its convention delegates.

The Civil Rights-era law requires the U.S. Justice Department to approve any significant voting change in Florida to make sure it doesn’t disenfranchise minority voters. Geller argues that includes the Democratic National Committee’s demand that Florida switch “from a state-run primary to party-run caucus system” to avoid losing its delegates.

“The purpose of this lawsuit is not to support one candidate over another; it’s to enforce one of the most basic tenets of our democracy: Count the votes as they were cast,” Geller said in announcing the lawsuit.

This isn’t the first time that the DNC has been accused of holding primaries that weren’t all that democratic. Gov. Ed Rendell made a similar accusation in late April: (continue reading post »)

I’ll give Juan Williams credit for talking about the Obamessiah’s race-related problems. It’s something that Democrats better come to grips with. Here’s the heart of Juan Williams’ article:

Hillary Clinton, down to her last straw, is making the case that she is the better candidate to run against the Republicans because, unlike Barack Obama, she can win white Democrats.
She is right. But because she is daring to touch the hot button of racial politics, she is being told to shut up or risk being charged with exploiting racial tensions for political advantage.
The facts are stubborn, however. Since his phenomenal win with 33% of the white vote in nearly all-white Iowa, Obama has been unable to get a firm grip on white Democrats. He has won a majority of these voters in only six states, the biggest of which is his home state of Illinois. Clinton has defeated Obama among white voters in key states such as California, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Exit polls show Clinton winning an overwhelming average of 57% of white Democrats since the February Super Tuesday elections.
If you think none of this is a real issue for Democrats as they try to win the White House, then listen to Republican guru Karl Rove. Citing Obama’s inability to get more than 30% of Catholics or working-class white voters in a big state such as Pennsylvania, Rove recently wrote: “Defections like this elect Republicans.”
And now we are heading into a general election with an even larger group of white voters in play, key independents and suburbanites in “toss-up” districts that swing between Republicans and Democrats.

It would be wrong to think that this problem is all because of Jeremiah Wright. I think Obama’s problem stems as much from his SF fundraising speech as it stems from Jerremiah Wright. The combination of the Wright videos and the fundraising speech are a toxic mix that’ve sucked the air out of Obama’s campaign, especially with white voters. (continue reading post »)

Wow!!! Greta van Susteren just posted something on the Pastor J-Wright-Obama controversy. To say that it was a blistering attack on Sen. Obama’s observational skills is understatement. First, here’s what the AP is reporting on Sen. Obama’s statement:

Democrat Barack Obama says he was outraged by the comments of his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and saddened by the spectacle of his appearance on Monday. Wright said Monday that criticism surrounding his fiery sermons is an attack on the black church.

Obama told reporters Tuesday that Wright’s comments do not accurately portray the perspective of the black church. Obama said, “I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday.”

Wright’s incendiary comments have dogged Obama’s presidential campaign.

Let’s give Greta credit for asking the most pertinent questions in this paragraph:

Reverend Wright is not the man he thought he was…..so naturally people will ask: what took you so long to figure it out? 20 years and only yesterday? are you that oblivious or is this statement political and calculating? and others will applaud him…saying what courage to address the issue…that he is standing up for what he believes even if it means denouncing someone you had admired..and that he is showing candor…

(continue reading post »)

ABC’s Jake Tapper just posted that the Pastor Wright ad that the NCGOP planned on running won’t run, at least in a large part of the state. The people at those stations are kidding themselves if they think that this stops the so-called controversy. First, let’s identify the stations:

ABC Charlotte affiliate WSOC-TV and CBS Raleigh affiliate WRAL-TV are refusing to air the North Carolina Republican Party TV ad featuring the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an ad condemned by both the RNC and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

“I just don’t think it’s appropriate to be on our air,” Joe Pomilla, general manager for WSOC-TV, told The Charlotte Observer. “I think it’s offensive, and I’m not real comfortable with the implications around race.”

Mr. Pomilla’s saying that the ad has racial implications is insulting. This ad doesn’t have anything to do with race except with people who think that everything is racial. This has to do with highlighting Sen. Obama’s relationship with extremists. That’s fair game.

There’s another question that begs asking, namely, would they have refused to run this ad if Hillary was making this buy? I suspect that they would. If they would’ve run this ad had it been Hillary’s buy, then isn’t that censorship?

It’s worth questioning Democrats’ objections to the ad based on this statement: (continue reading post »)