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Showing posts with label ObamaPastor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ObamaPastor. Show all posts
Barack Obama on what Whites think

Barack Obama on what Whites think

Barack Obama describing his first meeting with Rev. Wright:

"Reverend Wright shrugged. 'Some of my fellow clergy don't appreciate what we're about. They feel like we're too radical.'"

You can find a long set of his quotes here.
On the Wright Issue's Damage to Obama

On the Wright Issue's Damage to Obama

John Fund has this at today's WSJ's Political Diary:

Mr. Obama is going to have to address his continued weakness with white, working-class voters. He won North Carolina on the strength of getting 93% of the black vote, and since blacks made up a third of the electorate in the Tar Heel State, the African-American vote was able to carry him to victory. But he won only 38% of white Democrats and only 42% of independent voters.

In Indiana it was no better. He won half of the vote on the strength of his showing in urban Gary and Indianapolis, but was trounced 65% to 35% among white Democrats and also lost independent voters. The Rev. Wright and Mr. Obama's remarks in San Francisco about rural voters have taken a toll -- two-thirds of Democrats in both states who voted for Mrs. Clinton told exit pollsters they would be dissatisfied with Mr. Obama as the nominee. . . .
Obama's Meet the Press Interview

Obama's Meet the Press Interview

Obama on Meet the Press yesterday mentioned this:

And I--you know, some, some of the reporting that implies that somehow he's my spiritual advisor or mentor, as he himself said, overstated things. He was my pastor, and he built a terrific church.


Rev. Wright's sermons were filled with politics. It is hard to listen to them and not hear just a constant political discussion. I don't think that Wright knows the difference between politics and religion.

It's in my DNA to believe that we can bring this country together . . .


All I can say is that the Obama that I knew at Chicago didn't seem to want to discuss issues with people with whom he disagreed.
Why Oprah Winfrey left Wright's church

Why Oprah Winfrey left Wright's church

Newsweek has the explanation here:

According to two sources, Winfrey was never comfortable with the tone of Wright's more incendiary sermons, which she knew had the power to damage her standing as America's favorite daytime talk-show host. "Oprah is a businesswoman, first and foremost," said one longtime friend, who requested anonymity when discussing Winfrey's personal sentiments. "She's always been aware that her audience is very mainstream, and doing anything to offend them just wouldn't be smart. She's been around black churches all her life, so Reverend Wright's anger-filled message didn't surprise her. But it just wasn't what she was looking for in a church." Oprah's decision to distance herself came as a surprise to Wright, who told Christianity Today in 2002 that when he would "run into her socially … she would say, 'Here's my pastor!' " (Winfrey declined to comment. A Harpo Productions spokesperson would not confirm her reasons for leaving the church.) . . .

Friends of Sen. Barack Obama, whose relationship with Wright has rocked his bid for the White House, insist that it would be unfair to compare Winfrey's decision to leave Trinity United with his own decision to stay. "[His] reasons for attending Trinity were totally different,'' said one campaign adviser, who declined to be named discussing the Illinois senator's sentiments. "Early on, he was in search of his identity as an African-American and, more importantly, as an African-American man. Reverend Wright and other male members of the church were instrumental in helping him understand the black experience in America. Winfrey wasn't going for that. She's secure in her blackness, so that didn't have a hold on her.'' And while Winfrey, who has endorsed Obama and campaigned on his behalf, had long understood the perils of a close association with Wright, friends say she was blindsided by the pastor's personal assault on Obama. "She felt that Wright would never do anything to hurt a man who looked up to him as a father figure," said her close friend. "She also never thought he'd intentionally hurt someone trying to make history and change the lives of so many people.''


An interview with the reporter by Greta on Fox News can be found here. This is a very bad interview for Obama. Greta seems bothered by the fact that Oprah understood how bad this is but that Obama didn't. The explanation offered by the reporter doesn't seem to satisfy Greta and I don't think that it would satisfy my other people.
What the Wright affair is doing to Obama's campaign

What the Wright affair is doing to Obama's campaign

John Fund at the WSJ's Political Diary has a new post about what the Wright affair is doing to Obama and Democrats generally:

A new Fox News poll may provide some evidence that the Rev. Wright affair is damaging the campaign of Barack Obama.

The poll shows that Mr. Obama's favorable ratings have declined among Democrats to a point where Hillary Clinton now has higher net positive ratings. Mr. Obama is viewed favorably by 63% of Democrats and negatively by 27%. Mrs. Clinton has a 73% favorable rating and is viewed negatively by 22% of Democrats. Specifically on Rev. Wright, 36% of Democrats say they would be disinclined to vote for Mr. Obama because of his ties to his former pastor.

Perhaps this explains why Travis Childers, the Democratic frontrunner in a special House election this month in Mississippi, has now gone out of his way to combat GOP attempts to associate him with the Illinois Senator. . . .
Why aren't Obama's political supporters coming to his aide this week?

Why aren't Obama's political supporters coming to his aide this week?

Dan Henniger has this very interesting observation at the WSJ:

At Barack Obama's darkest hour, not one prominent ally came forward to support him. Everyone abandoned Everyman.

No prominent black clergyman came forth to make even the simple point that Jeremiah Wright's notion of the "black church" is but one point on a spectrum of faith. Rev. Wright, now written off as a virtual nut case, got more support from black clergymen than did Obama.

Barack Obama was bleeding by Monday and needed cover. Where, when he could have used them, were Obama's oh-so-famous endorsers: Jesse Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Oprah, John Kerry, Chris Dodd, Patrick Leahy, Tom Daschle, Amy Klobuchar, Claire McCaskill, Jay Rockefeller, John Lewis, Toni Morrison, Roger Wilkins, Eric Holder, Robert Reich, Ted Sorenson, Alice Walker, David Wilhelm, Cornel West, Clifford Alexander, Donald McHenry, Patricia Wald, Newton Minow?

Where were all the big-city mayors who went over to the Obama camp: Chicago's Richard Daley, Cleveland's Frank Reynolds, Atlanta's Shirley Franklin, Washington's Adrian Fenty, Newark's Cory Booker, Baltimore's Sheila Dixon?

It isn't hard for big names to get on talk TV to make a point. Any major op-ed page would have stopped the presses to print a statement of support from Ted Kennedy or such for the senator. None appeared. Call it profiles in gopher-holing. . . . .

Analysts and historians will spend years sorting through the lessons of this most bizarre of all presidential campaigns. The Obama desertion points in a few directions.

The nature of modern media coverage and the length of the campaign (two years!) has made these presidential candidates truly larger than life; indeed, they've become almost cartoon-like. Their personas dwarf and overwhelm the parties to which they nominally belong. . . . .
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