Obama, Democrats Try to Leave Race Issue Behind Them
Barack Obama speaks at a town hall rally in Charlotte, N.C., Wednesday, after delivering a speech on the Iraq War in Fayetteville. (AP Photo)
Hillary Clinton has widened her lead over Barack Obama in Pennsylvania, according to a poll taken at the height of the recent controversy surrounding sermons made by Obama’s spiritual adviser.
The Franklin & Marshall College survey shows Clinton leading Obama by 16 percentage points, 51 percent to 35 percent. The March 11-16 poll of 464 registered Democrats showed that Obama’s favorability ratings had dropped 10 percentage points from a month earlier. (The poll has a margin of error of 4.5 percent.)
But there still is plenty of room for change before the state’s April 22 primary; 13 percent of Democrats polled said they were undecided.
Other recent polls have also indicated that the storm over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.’s anti-American sermons has been chipping away at the Obama campaign. It’s one reason why the Obama team and Democratic strategists who expect him to win the party’s nomination are working hard now to leave the issue of race behind them.
The week-long focus on Wright’s fiery sermons, which Obama decried Tuesday as racially divisive, has made discussion of race issues an inevitable talking point on the campaign trail. Though Clinton has avoided making a political point of the sermons, Democratic strategists are worried that they could become a rallying point for Republicans if Obama becomes the Democratic candidate for president.
“I think he has done enough to survive it and get the Democratic nomination … but this is an albatross that will be around his neck throughout the whole general election,” said FOX News political analyst Dick Morris, a former Bill Clinton strategist who has been a vocal opponent of the former first lady.
“We’ll see how it shows up in polling. … [Democrats] are now very worried about what this does to his chances in November,” said Patricia Murphy, editor of CitizenJanePolitics.com. “That’s the anxiety that this has raised, and even that speech didn’t put those fears to rest.”
National Public Radio national correspondent Juan Williams, a FOX News analyst, said a potential complication following Obama’s speech is the attention that it continues to draw to the issue of race. It poses a problem in a campaign where the candidates are trying to focus on the economy, national security and health care.
“He doesn’t want to be the black candidate in the race, because he wants to be the candidate who transcends race … suddenly he’s back in the box as just a black candidate,” Williams said.
The race issue appears to have had an effect on voters.
A CBS poll showed that 25 percent of those surveyed had heard “a lot” about Wright’s comments, while 33 percent had heard some. Of those aware of the story, 15 percent of Democrats, 36 percent of Independents and 47 percent of Republicans said it made them see Obama less favorably.
A Rasmussen survey taken from March 14-16 of 1,200 likely voters showed 56 percent of those interviewed were less likely to vote for Obama because of the Wright’s sermons.
And for the second day in a row, Clinton took the lead in the Gallup daily tracking poll. The poll from March 15-17 showed Clinton with 47 percent support among Democrats and Obama with 44 percent. The two candidates have been neck-and neck throughout the month of March.
Obama’s speech Tuesday was widely praised as a heartfelt, candid assessment of racial divisions that put bitterness between whites and blacks in historical context.
“With this speech Barack Obama showed he’s ready to be president of the United States,” said Democratic strategist Dan Gerstein. “The question now is, is America ready for Barack Obama?”
But it was also widely noted that Obama will probably not be done with the race issue if he becomes the Democratic candidate.
GOP strategist Angela McGlowan said the pastor flap will help the Republican Party in November, noting that it didn’t take McCain as long to denounce anti-Catholic comments from the Rev. John Hagee, who has endorsed McCain but was never his personal spiritual adviser.
The big question for the near-term is whether the race issue will turn off primary voters. The controversy surrounding Wright came right after former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, a Clinton supporter, left her role on the Clinton finance committee for suggesting Obama would not be where he is if he were white.
The Obama campaign also took down a posting on its Web site Wednesday in which the New Black Panther Party endorsed the Illinois senator. The campaign said it rejects the endorsement.
Attempting to push forward, the Illinois senator spoke extensively about ending the Iraq war in Fayetteville, N.C., on Wednesday. He continued his assault on Clinton’s vote to authorize the war, and lumped the New York senator with McCain and President Bush for what he said were their attempts to distort his proposals for troop withdrawal and diplomacy in the Middle East.
Obama is not expected to attend Easter services at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago this Sunday, as he is going on vacation with his family. Wright is no longer the pastor at the church, one of the reasons Obama cited in his decision to stay a part of the congregation.
American University professor Jane Hall told FOXNews.com that the race issue is an unfortunate diversion for Obama, who drew supporters hoping this would not be a campaign about race.
But she said the renewed dialogue is not one that’s easy to shake.
“Race is a huge subject. I don’t think we’ve dealt with it enough,” she said. “I think people were shocked by these videos (of Wright), I think a lot of people were shocked … And then when you talk to African Americans, they say ‘Well, you know you haven’t experienced what I’ve experienced.’ So we’re sort of stuck.”
I am tired of Obama news. This is free propaganda for him. Do you have anything better
to do.
Bill Richardson, you are a traitor. You think, Obama is going to give you the Vice President
position if he wins. Wrong. You should have stay with your old friends. TRAIDOR
You were one of my favorites persons, now I don’t like you anymore.
Obama, we are tired of you. Why the media only focus on Obama. How about something
nice to say for Hillary.
This is the worst nightmare I have ever seen.
We are in America - hello………….?
ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!!! If Obama wanted to leave the race issue behind WHY did he start the debate in the first place. This whole thing started over HATE speech and Obama’s the one who decided to make it about race to change the subject and deflect the original issue. Maybe it should be left behind and have him return to the original issue. If he REALLY wanted to bring the country together why would he take his children (a new generation of people) to listen to hate speech and perpetuate the VERY thing he claims to be against?
After reading this article, it only strengthens my belief that Obama is the right man for president and that Fox news is a bastion for hatred.
That is the sum total of this Man. That is all he stands for.
Someone else in these columns said on Obama [I made a note and quote without his kind permission because he put it well]: “To use prejudice, twist it and let it hang in the air hands clean, the way of the terrorist, the Manipulator Messiah.”
Study his Philadelphia speech well. It is nothing less than unadulterated racial incitement, skillfully dressed in fine words in that old City; yes he picked his venue well. The man is brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Problem is, his devious mind.
Obama can’t loose. He’s got it worked out. When Denver burns, as it now sure will, he will have achieved his purpose.
That is how Terrorism works.
But see, then he can step in as Peacemaker Messiah. Simply wins, either way it goes. His a genius [give him that] but of what …. ask him, he won’t tell, as with everything else. Fine oratory, but we know nothing of the man.
A previous comment herein adapted an old cliché to the Dem’s; another way would be: “live by the Messiah, die by the Messiah.”
It seems to me the blacks, not all, but many just cannot let go of the past. The slave factor has been around since time. Others have let it go, but this group cannot for some reason. I Thought we had made much progress and now I have to say I am very sad to find out it just is not true, we have made very little progress. The slave factor is over 100 years behind us. How long does it take, why all the hate for white people who had nothing to do with slaves. I no longer trust what I had trusted. Oboma cannot be a leader, not with his past friends that he will not let go of.
How disappointing to see that FoxNews.com has failed to cover the truly newsworthy event this week, namely Barack Obama’s speech on race issues in America, delivered two days ago (March 18) in Philadelphia.
Instead, FoxNews has published an article that cynically re-inscribes the divisive rhetorical tropes of racialized politics, evidenced even in the headline “Obama, Democrats Try to Leave Race Issue Behind Them.” This headline and the frequent references in the article to “the race issue” slowly reveal that what FoxNews has in mind when it talks about the ‘race issue’ has virtually nothing to do with racial politics in the United States, problems that trouble the nation such as discrimination, injustice, economic inequality and the intangible pain and mutual distrust that have emerged between the races over the course of more than two centuries. In short, for FoxNews, the ‘race issue’ has nothing to do with the issues directly and eloquently addressed in the text of Obama’s speech, which is presumably why the news agency did not cover the event.
For FoxNews, the ‘race issue’ boils down to the brute fact of Barack Obama’s own race; in other words, the fact that Barack Obama is a black person. FoxNews presumes that for its readers, the “race issue” is transparent: Barack Obama *is* a race issue, because of his own race. It is clear from this article that for the Caucasian candidates running for the White House, there are no ‘race issues’. FoxNews cynically picks up the the practical fact that in the United States in 2008, a non-white Presidential candidate will have to contend with racism, and turns to its readers invoking the racist logic that this unfortunate fact is actually a justified political concern: “the race issue,” is the newsworthy and politically justified deep fear of Barack Obama’s own status as black.
The demoralizing conclusion we are supposed to draw from this article is that Obama can “try” to get away from “the race issue” but he can never truly escape it, since to escape it would be to escape from being black.
Against such a deeply cynical, prejudiced and unsubstantiated approach to news reporting, what can one say?
I am ashamed for FoxNews and I am not surprised that there is no journalist who would sign his or her name on the byline of this article.