Wright Speaks, Democrats Yawn
David Weigel | March 31, 2008, 8:48am
From week to week the Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls can be lifesavers for that wholesome mass of Americans who don't want Barack Obama to be president. When the Jeremiah Wright videos were god-DAMN-ing their way across TV screens, the polls showed a big Obama dip, leading head Hillary Clinton saboteur (to her campaign, mostly) Mark Penn to
gloating:
A look at the polls shows that Sen. Obama’s lead nationally with Democrats has been evaporating. The Gallup daily tracking poll shows Hillary leading Sen. Obama among Democrats by 7 points, and the latest Zogby/Reuters poll has Sen. Obama’s lead down from 14 points last month to just 3 points now. This suggests a strong swing in momentum in the race to Hillary since the Texas and Ohio primaries earlier this month.
That was a week and a half ago. This weekend's polls show Obama driving out front again.
Gallup shows Obama leading Clinton 52 to 42 percent.
Rasmussen shows Obama up 47 to 42 percent, and his positive-negative numbers (which Rasmussen has always clocked higher than most pollsters, and which had ducked into negative territory), are narrowly positive. Clinton's are heavily negative. Obama's rebound against John McCain isn't happening so quickly, but he's doing better than Clinton once again. Did the Wright story have no effect?
Well, it did—as much as it could have without some cultural underpinnings. Stanley Kurtz stumbled across something profound
here.
Conservatives may think the revelations of Obama’s formative radicalism and his relationship with Wright are sure to sink him. While they may ultimately have that effect, the outcome is by no means certain. Contrary to liberal denials, Obama has been damaged by the Wright affair. Yet it’s also true that association with leftist and academic radicalism is no longer disturbing to large segments of the country.
Kurtz allows that "the culture is changing," and he thinks the media is pushing it. I agree, and the
scope of that cultural change is what's saving Obama. I've been reading Rick Perlstein's upcoming
Nixonland this week, and it makes sense to me why Obama's radical black connection isn't hurting him like the Victor Davis Hansons or Mark Steyns would expect. People just aren't that afraid of black radicalism anymore. Forty years ago white voters were literally, keep-your-gun-next-to-your-bed worried about an armed black revolt. When Stokley Carmichael would rant about what was coming to the white man, their minds would light up with images of Watts, Newark, Harlem. Perlstein quotes one hapless Iowa Democrat, who lost his seat in 1966, talking about a town hall meeting where constituents informed him that vicious blacks were going to attack Des Moines when they arrived from Chicago "on motorcyles."
I'm sure the Wright story damaged Obama with some white ethnic voters. But ripped out of a context where the sermons could have actually
threatened whites, as opposed to making them feel uncomfortable, they were never going to sink him if he handled them well. And he did handle them well.
damon | March 31, 2008, 11:19am | #
Joe,
You're certainly right about Obama's eye-and-mind share.
McCain isn't an especially compelling speaker either. Having more affinity towards the right than the left, I have spent countless hours with my stomach in knots, bemoaning the apparent lack of willingness on the GOP's part to offer up candidates with strong vocabularies, solid rhetoric, and a commitment to engaging the intellect of voters. (Please, no jokes about "that doesn't exist in the GOP" etc.) I'm a fairly bright guy, and among my friends who are conservative I count several extremely intelligent individuals who's understanding of economic, fiscal, and foreign policy is detailed, nuanced, and extensive.
Of course, we do not constitute the majority, but I wish the GOP (and DNC for that matter) would not cede intellectualism in favor of dumbed-down rhetoric so easily.
I lived in Europe for nearly 16 years, and despite protestations of some of my American friends (who studied abroad for one or two semesters, living exclusively among hyper educated oxfordians and cambridgeans)I see no major difference in the intellectual capacity or knowledge of the common European and the common American. Yet, at least in the UK and Germany, politicians, even when pandering, tend to remain explicit, detailed, and intellectually challenging when speaking on issues of policy.
Having worked in politics here in the US, I'm well aware of the sound-bite strategy and the common belief among pundits that the US citizenry somewhat requires mono-syllabic utterances and easily-pronounceable words. I think this is bunk. Maybe common US voters are overly sensitive to perceived elitism or haughty language, but I would very much wish for more candidates who debate on an intellectual level above that of the average 9th Grade highschool debate team.
Obama, to his credit, is better than most, but I don't find him inspiring or even convincing, because I notice he conveniently sidesteps most opposing views rather than addressing them head on. As a previous poster mentioned, this akido-like ability is powerful, but to me ultimately unfulfilling and perhaps even sinister.
I won't pine here for British Parliament, but I would pine for similar discourse.
Maybe if our political culture where more one of debate rather than differentiation.... I'd like to think those are the same thing, but in practice perhaps they are not.
Neu Mejican | March 31, 2008, 12:06pm | #
Cesar,
I agree.
The role of money is often over-emphasized.
Money can not shine a piece of shit, as they say, but Obama already has considerable appeal, unlike Romney.
If McCain is going to go negative and try and exploit something like the Wright affair, he would need money to do that while also trying to stay positive.
I don't see it happening.
He's too old.
Too much of a hawk.
Too much of a hothead.
Too much of a flip-flopper.
Too easily called out on his crazy talk.
Too weak on core conservative issues.
At least that is how I see it.
It is a long way from November, however.
Who knows how things will look by then.
TallDave is correct, of course, that what happens in Iraq in the interim will determine to a large degree how important the war is to the campaign.
What happens in the economy will be even more important.
And remember* Obama is advocating to "do something to help" while McCain is saying that those who got screwed on their mortgage deserve their pain (to the ears of the left) while at the same time saying that "greedy speculators" need to be punished (that's anti-investment to ears like my mother on the right). His message is too weak on both ends if the economy ends up to be the most important issue (when isn't it).
*This sentence was designed to test your working memory.
