Oratory to the Rescue?
17 March 2008 2:42 pm by Taylor Marsh
If ever Senator Obama needed his gift of oratory now is the time. He is to
give a “major speech” on race and Wright tomorrow to hopefully stem
the political bleeding. Via
Ben Smith:
“I am going to be talking about not just Reverend Wright, but the larger
issue of race in this campaign,” he said.He added that he would “talk about how some of these issues are perceived
from within the black church issue for example,” he said.He also briefly defended Wright from the image that has come through in a
handful of repeatedly televised clips from recent Wright sermons.“The caricature that’s being painted of him is not accurate,”
he said. … ..
One thing Senator Obama should not
do is defend Rev. Wright. One thing this does prove, which Obama refused to
admit early on, is that some 1960s conflicts are still very much alive. Just
ask Rev. Wright. Obama needs to speak about how Wright is the past and Obama
is the future, with their relationship and what he’s learned from Wright the
reason he’s the one to lead us out of the racial conflicts of the 20th century.
Obama is a truly gifted orator so this could work. Frankly, for the sake of
the Democratic party, I hope it does. Right now, Obama is still ahead for the
nomination battle, though Clinton clearly has a path, which has opened a bit
since the Wright revelations. Coming on top of Rezko, campaign crisis management on Obama’s part has been, shall we say, a bit slow.
But just when I begin to hope the guy can bind his self-inflicted wound, he says something completely calculating and disingenuous, like when talking to Gwen Ifill on The News Hour: “… .. I haven’t been in Washington as long as Senator Clinton or others that I have not distanced myself from these people for as long a period of time..” Ugh.
That line is certainly unlikely to soothe his Republican detractors and others who are
just learning about Obama now through Rev. Wright’s words. Not defining himself
from the start was a colossal mistake, because now Rev. Wright is doing it for
him, with a lot of help from the conservatives, with quite a few Democrats aghast at the mess Wright has made for us all.
But it’s Obama taking the biggest hit. Everyone is always talking about Clinton’s negatives. Obama’s negatives are
rising and his
favorables have, at least temporarily, fallen, including in his
standing against John McCain.
Last Thursday, 52% of voters nationwide had a favorable opinion of
Obama. That figure has fallen to 47% on Monday (see recent daily
results). In recent days, Obama has also lost ground to John McCain in the
Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
As for whether the Wright story has reached critical mass, 66% of voters say
they are aware of it. That’s only going to rise. As I said on MSNBC this morning,
it was a critical error not to get out in front of this story early on. It remains
to be seen whether Obama can diffuse it now.
