Apr 30 2008
Wright’s Damage To Obama Is Brutal And Swift
The polls are showing that Obama is taking on damage in reaction to the Rev Wright’s media spectacle Monday:
early half of Democrats (48 percent) think Hillary Clinton has a better chance of beating John McCain in November — 10 percentage points higher than the 38 percent who think Barack Obama can win, according to a FOX News poll released Wednesday. This represents a significant shift from March, when Democrats said Obama was the candidate more likely to beat McCain.
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Nearly a third of Clinton supporters — 32 percent — say they would vote for McCain instead of Obama (47 percent) if the general election were held today. Fewer Obama supporters — 21 percent — would defect and vote for McCain over Clinton if she were the nominee.
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The ongoing controversy over Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, appears to have damaged how Americans view Obama. His favorable rating is now 47 percent, down 7 percentage points since February when 54 percent had a positive view of him. As may be expected, his unfavorable rating went up from 33 percent to 42 percent today.
It seems the Wright-Reynolds (and Clinton?) plan to tank Obama is paying off huge dividends the week before the next big round of primaries. Obama’s once commanding lead in NC seems to be shrinking fast as well. If you look at the trend at RCP we see a fast erosion in Obama’s numbers.
While the latest Survey USA poll has Obama up by only 5% (nearly a tie), the same poll had him at 9% just a week ago and 10% the week before that. Losing half your edge in such a short time explains why the Obama’s have moved into damage control mode and are coming out all over the airwaves. Rassmussen shows a drop from 23% three weeks ago to 14% this week. The PPP poll shows a shocking drop from a 25% lead a week ago to 12% this week – another loss of 50% of his lead within a week.
It would seem the timing of Wright’s PR stunt was exceptional in terms of damaging Obama for the upcoming primaries. And again, it is not secret now the the entire fiasco was a surprise to Obama, but apparently not to the Clinton campaign which has publicly denounced Wright while surrogates run around behind the scenes claiming it has ended Obama’s chances. And the threat of a Wright book deal coming out later this year is a warning shot to the Super Delegates to think before the select. This is politics at its brutal best my friends. Which is why most people shun the career.
Hillary doesn’t have to win NC outright to do well in the superdelegates eyes, because Obama still has the black vote in his pocket no matter what. But if Obama keeps only the black vote and loses 90% of the white vote (possible) then that will be the clearest sign possible that he’s a general election loser, even though he may win the NC delegates. Ironically enough, this would make Bill Clinton’s much criticized comparison of Obama with Jesse Jackson very close to the truth.
Obama’s numbers are tanking because this has stuck him in the middle of the worst question to answer – When you say you didn’t know what Wright was all about till now, are you Lying? Or are you just Stupid?
Either one undercuts one of his major campaign themes, which is why Obama reacted so angrily to Wright calling him just another politician. “No I’m not!” says Obama, “I’m about change! I’m something new!!!”
“Oh” say the voters. “So it’s your judgment, which you said made up for your complete lack of experience, that is the problem. OK.”
It’s either one or the other – which is it? And this is where Obama starts to stutter and tries to change the subject.
I’ve come to realize that he really is much more of a lightweight and a dimbulb than any of us thought. He only works well when he’s on script, but extemporaneously he’s *awful*. He has to have handlers write his speeches and script his answer or else he doesn’t know what to say, which is why he tanked in the last debate and will refuse any more unscripted debates in the future. (did anyone catch Hillay challenging Obama to a debate on the back of a flatbed pickup truck? That was beauty, I can see her in bib overalls with a sprig of hay in her teeth, shouting “YEE HAH!!! Lookit me, I’m a country girl!!”
One final thought – those polls show more Hillary supporters potentially defecting to McCain than Obama supporters – but those polls are also missing the black/white divide that’s built up here. Angry black supporters of Obama may not vote for McCain if their guy loses, but they won’t vote for Hillary either. They’ll just stay home, and this poll is missing that effect entirely. Hopefully Hillary is, too.
Obama will win North Carolina and do well enough in Indiana to secure the nomination. Once Shrillery is out of the way, he will be able to concentrate on crushing the Senescent Senior Senator aka John Sidney McCain III aka Crazy Old Coot in November.
Once McCain is subjected to dialy scrutiny, the fact that he can’t remember what he said yesterday or who we’re fighting in Iraq will be amply demonstrated to the electorate.
Why should this have been a surprise to Obama? Is the man stupid? I don’t know or care if Hillary was behind Wright shooting his mouth. He did not say anything that he had not said time and again and apparently Obama was not all that bothered by it. Not for years anyway.
a supplemental post to my previous: finally found some numbers that may be accurate, looks like black voters should be about 30% of the vote in the NC dem primary. So, that’s Obama’s rock bottom base. With Obama’s NC poll numbers right now at 50% (from RCP) that means that Hillary is pulling 70% of white NC dem voters right now, and that number may go up.
WWS, I want to say thank you for the historic links that really substantiate the “source” of this broadway play going down. You started out an “unbeliever” of sorts of it being an “inside campaign strategy” and have emerged quite astute.
If I may only suggest one slight correction in your thought patterns above….
Obama (and Wright) are not dimwits. They foresaw this problem (via the NYTs article verifying their mutual acceptance of the problem) exactly one year ago today on public record, and definitely knew it between themselves before that. That is not a mark of stupid.
It is expected that BHO’s approval rating will tumble for a few days until the media rebuilds him as a courageous, wounded phoenix. I’m sure they also anticipated this.
The campaign strategy decision on their “premiere” comes down to this… timing! Since they knew they had to do this, did they do it too late? Or at the right time? Per the NYTs article, they didn’t anticipate this coming down until the general.
Terrye,
I posted this on another thread but it bears repeating:
Actually I am not missing the point – your missing the elegance of it all. Obama is clearly ticked off, and this is THE WORSE time for this show to go on the road.
A good political operative would have seen this coming and used it to injure Obama at a key point in time determined by his opposition – not by Obama. The timing was set by Clinton and Wright – they triggered Obama’s plan to hurt him the most instead of letting him trigger it to help him.
All it took was some quid pro quo for Wright to exact some revenge on Clinton’s time table. This is not helping Obama.
Sorry folks, but DC politics is a very sophisticated and subtle game played by professionals. This why it is not something just anyone can dabble in.
If Clinton does well in NC (and polls are starting to turn her way) she will have the big momentum and the popular vote and Obama will have to sit it out until 2012 or 2016. That is the Dem Machine plan now – to push Obama out of 2008.
Obama is not stupid – he is woefully inexperienced when it comes to DC politics. Even Bush had to deal with it as he never expected and he had been around it his whole life. Obama is out of his league.
“Obama will win North Carolina and do well enough in Indiana to secure the nomination.”
Heh. That’s one of the funniest things I have heard in a while.
I guess Soothie is admitting that the Dims are indeed to dim to see what awaits them.
Here is one of the funniest things I have seen in a while:
http://sweasel.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/obamaschickenslarge.jpg
AJ:
I think that if Hillary was going to do something like this, she might have done it before Obama pretty much made it impossible for her to win. And like I said, who cares? He asked for it.
soothie:
People have been watching McCain for a long long time. They know who he is. If they had paid half as much attention to Mr. Charisma before they voted for the man, the Democrats might not be going through this silliness right now.
I mean when you think about it, the really amazing thing is that Obama got as long a ride as he did.
Terrye,
This is a very dangerous and risky gambit. The closer Clinton gets to the end the more desperate and crass her actions will be. What would seem too much 2-3 months ago looks like all that is left as get into the final lap here.
You only go to the scorched earth actions once all other avenues have been exhausted.
Soothie,
“Once McCain is subjected to dialy scrutiny, the fact that he can’t remember what he said yesterday or who we’re fighting in Iraq will be amply demonstrated to the electorate.”
Kinda like Obama can’t remember the details about his father, or his pastor, or his grandmother? Kinda like that he doesn’t remember what he wrote in his books (you know the ones that made him millions )and the story continues to change? (Oh, now I see where he got his platform of “Change”). Looks like that daily scrutiny got to Obama not McCain.
And you know all of this about Obama so your post makes you either stupid or disingenuous…or both.
Here’s someone else who believes that Obama was the one who came up with this plan to distance himself from Wright:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obamas-campaign-gets-a-do-over/
Still, if this is the case then it is going to go down as a case of spectacularly bad timing. Latest poll out show Hillary up in North Carolina, something no one thought possible until now.
http://www.southernpoliticalreport.com/storylink_430_370.aspx
Hillary 44, Obama 42. Of course, this could be an outlier or just a moment – but with only one weekend before the primary Obama has little time to pull things back. And worse yet, he now has to split his time between the two states while Hillary can coast in Indiana and concentrate on NC.
And here’s an RCP article out that I just love:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/is_barack_obama_in_danger_of_b.html
To summarize bluntly, Hillary’s resurgence is based on her getting voters to believe that she’s Twice the Man that Obama is. And she’s doing it.
“… doubts about a candidate’s masculinity would spell trouble regardless of the opponent. But it’s especially problematic when, well, it’s a woman who’s pointing out what a wimp you’ve become.”
Oh, and I think we now know why the wimpy, effeminate, cringing Obama is the favorite of Soothsayer and his ilk – he recognizes a kindred spirit when he sees one!