Democratic Troubles

I believe the Democrats are in real trouble. I watched two interviews in the last two days, one with Hillary on the Bill O’Reilly show and the other with Obama on the Today show with Meredith Vieira. From my perspective, I believe the Democrats have realized they have backed the wrong candidate. Obama will still win the Democratic nomination, and will continue to win votes in the democratic primary, but as Hillary has brought to her parties attention, Obama is slowly losing a grip on swing voters and independents. What I saw in the interviews was a confident Hillary and a nervous Obama, and Hillary was being interviewed by her political enemy while Obama was interviewed by a soft today show. The biggest thing Obama has had going for himself in the past months was his charisma and speaking ability. But now that he is on the defensive and trying to justify his own actions and statements, he seems nervous and fidgety. Vieira did not throw hard balls at the Obamas but she did try a few times to get Michele Obama to say what her personal feelings were on Reverend Wright. Michele looked very uncomfortable and would not answer the question, but instead kept saying we need to move past this. Of course the Obamas want to move past this, Rev. Wright is killing them. They have to walk a fine line in distancing themselves from Wright to appease a white audience who find Wright offensive, while not do anything to provoke their black audience that support him. Again in my simple opinion, Obama’s speaking charisma has waned and is not as effective as Americans have become sensitized to his personality.

In the beginning of the campaign, Hillary seemed to be the time bomb, the candidate who was so polarizing that she could never win a national election. Yet as more information surfaces about Obama, his own statements, and a brilliant campaign from the Clinton’s in the recent months (3 O’clock in the morning phone call), Obama has become the more polarizing figure. The biggest hot button issues for Obama right now is his relationship with Rev. Wright, his comments in San Francisco, and his wife’s comments. Obama has denounced Rev. Wright, but to many it was too little too late. He said Wright is not the same man he knew 20 years ago, but yet he has been attending his church for 20 years and only this week separated himself from his minister. I still think the more damming issue is his statement in San Fran, that the only reason middle America believes in God is that they are economically oppressed. Obama has said his comment was taken out of context, but I cannot think of any context where this statement would not be negative. In his interview on the Today Show, he defended the accusation of an elitist by pointing out his own humble background (See William Henry Harrison post). However his comment was not aimed towards urban poor, but small town poor, and I would add had a racist component. I am fearful of the direction Obama will take from here out. Also in the interview he blamed the recent attacks on him as a result of America being afraid of a black man winning, he has now used the race card. As his character and his own statements are coming under attack, he is seeing his best defense as they are doing this because I am black. In the long run this approach will not work on America. Americans need to be able to criticize their president (look at Pres Bush), and they need to feel they can criticize without being labeled a racist. The most interesting aspect of the particular race card is it is being directed towards his own party. Much of the criticism thrown towards him is from his own party, namely the Clinton campaign.

I would like to make one other comment about the Wright situation. Why would Wright want to hurt the Obama candidacy, because that is what he is doing. I believe the answer is two fold. One, it is simply about greed. Wright is a wealthy man, and this controversy has only made him more public and more important in certain circles. He cares more about himself and his standing then he does in helping Obama get elected. Second, and I will admit I have no factual bases for this other than my gut, but an Obama victory has the potential of being damaging to men like Wright, Jesse Jackson, and Farakon. All these men derive their power from the perception of a racist American and also a racist government. The discussion of race will have to change dramatically if we elect a black man. How can they fight against a racist government if the government is led by a black man. With no racism, they have no power. They either need Obama to lose and call the nation racist or if he wins, make him an uncle Tom, similar to what black leaders have done to Condi Rice.