A Paucity of Hope?

Posted by Robert Zimmer on 05.02.2008

Six days after beginning his narcissistic press tour, polls show that the noxious Reverend Wright has sucked the oxygen out of Obama’s campaign.

The giant sucking sound at Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago is the bottom dropping out. The endless media fulminations over Rev. Jeremiah Wright are yielding to a new wave of poll numbers that have the Obama camp extremely rattled. Every North Carolina poll shows Obama's lead over Clinton eroding precipitously, and an InsiderAdvantage poll released on April 30 actually shows Senator Clinton ahead by two points, with 14 percent undecided. Undecideds have historically broken for Clinton in contests thus far, and what is more troubling for Obama is that the largest percentage of undecideds in the InsiderAdvantage poll are both demographics that have thus far gone Clinton's way – Hispanics and voters 65+. What is all the more striking about this movement is that some polls had Obama leading Clinton by 20 points or more as recently as two weeks ago. The news is equally worrisome from Indiana, where the three polls taken this week show Clinton leading by five to ten points.

Obama's counterargument to Clinton's experience argument has been to suggest he possesses better judgment. It should be clear now that Obama's claim is now in question due to his willing 20-year association with a kook obsessed with identity politics and race-baiting conspiracy theories. Reverend Wright has shown us his true colors this week, declaring criticism of him to be criticism of the entire black church and suggesting the U.S. government invented AIDS to kill black people. (I am sure gay men of all races have a different viewpoint on the latter issue.)

This content is so toxic that anyone who thinks the Nutty Preacher issue is going away is deluding themselves. Wright isn't done with his press tour. What happens if he stands up in front of television cameras this week or next and smugly tells America that Obama always knew his pastor's eccentric views and was in fact present during some of the most offensive greatest hits? Or worse, what if Obama wins the nomination and Wright drops the above bomb in the middle of the general election against McCain? Lastly, Obama has lied himself into a corner by claiming he was somehow unaware of the controversial ideas Wright expressed. Nobody who pauses to think about this can believe Obama had been friends for 20 years with Wright and not be aware of his offensive views, which leads people to wonder how many of those views Obama shared. I take Obama at his word on the latter question, but big-league journalists are already writing about this. The May 1 issue of the New York Times reported that when Obama called Wright in early 2007 to disinvite him from speaking at the announcement of Obama's presidential run, Obama cited the content of Wright's sermons as the reason for the diss. "‘You can get kind of rough in the sermons,' " Mr. Wright said Mr. Obama told him. ‘Rather than have you out front, we thought it would be best to not have you do the invocation.'" If Obama didn't see this week's public betrayal coming, he is not only naïve but lacking in political skill. What is even more fascinating, and damning, is that Wright blamed Obama's chief campaign strategist, David Axelrod, for the dis-invitation; the NYT article goes on to quote Wright as saying "They're spiriting him away from people in the African-American community. David doesn't know the African-American church scene." So the ‘post-racial campaign' was quite cognizant of racial issues, which leads me to further believe, as The New Republic's Sean Wilentz and David Greenberg have surmised, that Axelrod masterminded a calculated effort to paint Bill and Hillary Clinton's criticisms of Obama as racist. As I have written before, the notion that the Clintons are racist is utterly preposterous, and while they are too smart to not be cognizant of how race factors into the campaign, so is David Axelrod. That people actually believe the Obama campaign has been a paragon of clean, color-blind campaigning is, I admit, a testament to the creepy political skills of Axelrod.

To Obama's credit, he got out in front of the Wright issue, albeit belatedly, and delivered a forceful and impressive denunciation of Wright's remarks and effectively ended the relationship between the two men. It was a sad day, but what was refreshing about it is that Obama effectively repudiated the corrosive negativity of identity politics. Hopefully, it is not too late for him. The metrics of the Democratic race are still in Obama's favor, though his strength against McCain seems in doubt. It is unlikely Clinton can overtake Obama in elected delegates. She has a chance at overtaking him in the popular vote, which may depend in part on how the Florida and Michigan issue is handled by the Democratic National Committee. Obama has picked up a few more superdelegates than Clinton this week; rumors are that many superdelegates in Congress favor Obama but are delaying their endorsements in search of political cover. This cover could come if Obama defeats Clinton in both North Carolina and Indiana. I believe the race is over if Clinton loses both states. However, if she wins both states – entirely possible, in a huge turn from two weeks ago – Clinton will have Obama on the ropes for the first time since before Iowa. Obama is facing the largest collective crisis of his candidacy, and how he and his campaign handle things in the final days before the North Carolina and Indiana primaries on May 6 will be an important test of their mettle and ability to beat John McCain (whom you had better believe will not be shy about allowing Reverend Wright's madness seep back into the campaign.)

Meanwhile, five years to the day after George W. Bush declared victory in Iraq in his infamous "Mission Accomplished" moment, gas prices are at their highest level in American history despite the administration's promises that the war would pay for itself and would result in lower gas prices. Fortunately, the yawing gap between reality and Bush administration propaganda has finally grown so large that 71% of Americans disapprove of Bush's job performance. He is the most unpopular president in modern history, and rightfully so, because he is not just the worst president in modern history – he is the worst president in American history. Yes, worse than James Buchanan.