Polling shows that 20 percent of the supporters of Obama & Hillary would desert to John McCain if their Democratic favorite is not the nominee. NRO's Mona Charen impales Obama:
It’s a mistake to try to pigeonhole Barack Obama. He is too smart and
too agile to succumb to easy categorization. But the candidate’s
eloquence is often more of a curtain than a window to his soul — and
one is left to wonder where his heart truly lies. As George Burns said
of acting, “Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you’ve got
it made.”
Charles Krauthammer finds two themes in Obama's Philly speech: (1) moral equivalence--equating Granny's private use of a racial epithet with his pastor's public racist agitation; (2) white guilt--excusing the pastors fulminations on his past experience with racism. CK finishes his column asking, of Obama's claim that he transcends old racial attitudes:
Then answer this, Senator: If Wright is a man of the past, why would you expose your children to his vitriolic divisiveness? This is a man who curses America and who proclaimed moral satisfaction in the deaths of 3,000 innocents at a time when their bodies were still being sought at Ground Zero. It is not just the older congregants who stand and cheer and roar in wild approval of Wright’s rants, but young people as well. Why did you give $22,500 just two years ago to a church run by a man of the past who infects the younger generation with precisely the racial attitudes and animus you say you have come unto us to transcend?
Tom Bethell notes that one MSM member sees danger to Obama, arising out of loss of MSM's former virtual news monopoly:
"The danger," he wrote, as though he were already on the Obama team, "is that what might last are the images of his Chicago pastor -- edited and reedited into television ads, YouTube videos and an endless stream of e-mails delivered quietly into the computers of millions of Americans."
On a Philly radio show March 20, Obama said this about his grandmother: "She is a typical white person." His reference was to her fear of young black men on the street, a fear shared by, among others, Jesse Jackson, who is not a typical white person. Wonder why? Try this: Pat Buchanan, not one of the world's diplomats, served up some un-P.C. statistics, to explain white resentment towards blacks: 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock, 50 percent of blacks drop out of high school; white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, while black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time; black on white rapes are 100 times more common than white on black; black on whit robberies were 139 times more common for 2000 - 2003 than white on black.
One prominent African-American civil rights leader, Michael Meyers, rejected the idea that Obama could disavow his pastor's statements while continuing to embrace him. Meyers said: "
The pulpit was Mr. Obama's but he spent his moral capital on gibberish about how blacks and whites have differently trained or "untrained" ears and sensibilities when it comes to judging whether a minister is preaching hate or nourishing the souls of his dispirited flock with entreaties of group blame.
A Thursday Rasmussen poll--after Obama's Philly speech--shows ominous numbers for the Democrats: Only 55 percent of blacks say they would support Clinton against McCain, while only 36 percent of whites says they would support Obama against McCain. Rasmussen's nightly presidential tracking polls target likely voters, the worst possible group for a candidate to find bad numbers. New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin calls the pastor imbroglio a Democratic train wreck.
A New York Times front-pager shows that Hillary matched Obama's increase in fund-raising in February versus January; Obama went from $36 million to $55 million, while Hillary jumped from 24 million to $35 million. Obama raised $45 million (82 percent) of his February funds from the Internet, while Hill raised $30 million of her February total (86 percent) online. The March figures will reflect the impact of Obama's pastor problem.
Scenarios proliferate. The governing assumption for over a month has been that as Obama's delegate lead is insurmountable, Hill must win the popular vote to gain moral credence in asking for the top spot. But with Florida and Michigan now declining to re-stage, Hill's chance of winning a popular majority is greatly diminished. If somehow she does, by winning hugely lopsided contests the rest of the way, sweeping all 10 primaries still to come, then she gets the top spot, with Obama V-P to assuage black voters. But what if Hill fails to catch up to Obama in the popular voting, trailing by less than one percentage point, yet sweeps the remaining primaries--including North Carolina, which had been considered a sure thing for Obama?
The Dems would then face a true worst-case nightmare: A candidate (Obama) with both delegate and popular vote margins, clearly entitled to win the nod, and the other (Hillary) clearly with momentum based upon he late sweep, with big margins that suggest perhaps only she can prevail in the fall. As for Big Mac, he should take a nice summer vacation.
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