Will Reverend Wright Destroy the Obama Campaign?

Senator Barack Obama repudiated his pastor today. In a press conference that veered from the political to personal and back again, he expressed his disappointment, anger and outrage at Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s continued statements concerning the United States, race and other issues. Reverend Wright had spent the past few days at various events and holding press conferences of his own. While it initially appeared he might be toning down his rhetoric, that ended yesterday when he restated some of his more poisonous assertions.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. The Reverend Wright controversy arose weeks before the Pennsylvania primary. It would have been nice for the Obama campaign if it had peaked then allowing him to focus on other matters in the build-up to critical contests in Indiana and North Carolina next Tuesday. Instead, Reverend Wright brought the issue raging back to dominate the last few news cycles. Just in time to distract Senator Obama from applying the political focus he needs to on the nuts-and-bolts issues of importance in Indiana.

So instead of talking about trade and health care and jobs and fuel prices, Senator Obama is talking about race. Race is the last issue his candidacy — which is built in no small part on his transcending the issue — wants to put front-and-center.

The obvious irony here is that Reverend Wright may haved torpedoed the chances of America’s first black president more effectively than the combined might of the Republican Party and the supporters Senator Hillary Clinton. Both have played the so-called race card, but ineffectively. Senator Clinton’s campaign used the issue so ineptly it hurt her campaign and aided Senator Obama. But that’s yesterday. Now all Senator Clinton needs to do is sit back and let Reverend Wright do her dirty work.

Whether Reverend Wright swiftboats his parishiner will be determined by voters in Indiana. If Senator Obama won there he’d be all but certain of the Democratic nomination. Should he lose it Senator Clinton will be able to plausably claim only she can win in November. Prior to the latest Reverend Wright flare-up polls showed the race in Indiana a dead-heat. Those polls don’t mean much now. And more recent ones show Senator Clinton taking the lead.

Thanks to Reverend Wright it’s a new ballgame in Indiana — one that favors Senator Clinton.

Super Delegates are Going to Have to Actually Work!

When the dust settles in a few weeks both Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama will have won a few more primaries, questioned each other’s integrity and capabilities, and failed to wrap up the nomination. Which means the Democratic Party’s super delegates will need to come forward and make a decision.

This is not what they had in mind. Being a super delegate was supposed to be a sure ticket to a big party in Denver come August, not a requirement to anger a powerful leader of the party. Yet that’s what they’re in for. Go with Senator Clinton and the insurgents backing Senator Obama will long remember. Go with Senator Obama and Senator Clinton’s clan will never forget. Denver’s a nice place, but the ticket just got a lot more expensive.

In making their fateful decision, super delegates will likely consider: 1) what’s in it for them; 2) which candidate has the best chance to win in November; and 3) which candidate will have the strongest coattails for the party in November.

The first question is unique to each individual. I addressed the third question in an earlier post. So let’s chat about the second issue for a moment. The headline on Yahoo! Politics today is “Poll: Clinton has better chance than Obama of beating McCain.” Too bad the headline doesn’t really match the content of the story. The story describes an Associated Press poll testing how the two Democrats fair in heads-up competition against the presumptive GOP nominee,  Senator John McCain. Senator Clinton leads Senator McCain 50 percent to 41 percent. Senator Obama and Senator McCain are in a statistical tie at 46 percent-to-44 percent.

But come on. It’s April. And this is 2008, the year of the hit-and-miss polls. There’s a long way to go until November. And Senator McCain has gotten pretty much a free ride of late while the Democrats have been perfecting their circular firing squad techniques. The good news for Democrats is that there’s plenty of ammunition available for the general election. Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen recently pointed out a number of flip-flops by Senator McCain that greatly undermines his appeal to indpendent voters and many Democrats. As she notes: “The Bush tax cuts: McCain voted against them as a senator, but now says he would make them permanent as president. Immigration: he cosponsored a bill in 2005 to make it easier for those in the country illegally to become citizens, but now says that if his own bill—his own bill!—came to a vote on the Senate floor, he would vote against it. After Columbine, he called for more gun control; after Virginia Tech, he said more gun control was unnecessary.”

I point this out not to pick on Senator McCain, but to underscore that polls on the November election don’t mean much now. The public perception of the candidates will change considerably and often in the next six months. Both Senators Clinton and Obama have strengths and weaknesses the GOP will exploit. Senator McCain has weaknesses that make easy targets for any Democratic nominee. In other words, there’s no way of knowing whether Senator Obama or Senator Clinton will fare better against Senator McCain in the general election. But both are likely to do well.

Which leaves the super delegates to ponder the issue of coattails. And, of course, their own self-interest.

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The Rocky Democratic Primary

The Democratic presidential campaign is now looking like a Rocky film. Any Rocky film. Both participants are bloodied. Both have hit the canvas more than once. Both have landed powerful blows and both have taken them. The partisans of each are in a frenzy. But only one of them is Rocky. The question is: who?

Senator Barack Obama remains the frontrunner. He has more delegates and has received more votes than his opponent, Senator Hillary Clinton. And while the uproar over his minister’s outrageous statements knocked him down, his speech in Philadelphia seems to have brought him back to his feet, at least among Democrats nationally according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. The poll shows Senators Clinton and Obama tied nationally among Democrats. The poll also shows that the long running boxing match known as the Democratic primaries is hurting the standing of both candidates among voters.

Yet while Senator Obama has the strongest claim to crumpled crown, it is Senator Clinton who is likely to earn the right to a Rocky-like sprint up those stairs in Philadelphia. She maintains a double digit lead in all the recent surveys for the April 22nd primary in Pennsylvania. Her campaign will tout this as proof that: 1) her comeback is complete; 2) only she can win in November; and 3) Senator Obama’s troubles have doomed his campaign.

The reailty is different, however. She is unlikely to make much headway against Senator Obama’s lead among delegates (CNN has Senator Obama with 1,622 delegates to Senator Clinton’s 1,485). Nor is she likely to overtake him in the popular vote (where he holds a 700,000+ vote lead, not counting the Florida and Michigan primaries — although even counting those tainted elections Senator Obama still out-polls Senator Clinton by approximately 100,000 votes).  

Of course, in political reality trumps real world reality every time. So if Senator Clinton’s team can sell the media — and if the media can sell the super delegates — that a win in Pennsylvania leaves only Senator Clinton standing in the ring, the actual delegate count won’t really matter.

However, her victory dance may be short. The next major round, two weeks later, are the primaries in North Carolina and Indiana. Senator Obama should win in North Carolina, where polls show him with a double digit lead. And while there are few polls for Indiana, those tend to show the Hoosier state it going to Senator Obama. If he lands this combination blow, the Obama campaign will proclaim they are proof that: 1) he has been and remains the true chamption; 2) only he can win in November; and 2) Senator Clinton’s campaign is doomed.

Yet, Senator Clinton is likely to pick herself up and continue the contest through Oregon and West Virginia and on to through Kentucky to Puerto Rico. The gladiators will continue to pound away at each other. Both candidates will hit the canvas again only to unsteadily rise to their feet. Come the Democratic convention this August in Denver they could both be punch drunk, battered and bruised, but still in the ring.

In the end, only one of them will get the nomination. Only one will be Rocky. Whoever it is, is going to need some bed rest, aspirin, and bandaids before the general election. And a raw steak for the black eyes couldn’t hurt.

Is Reverand Wright Barack Obama’s Swift Boat?

Senator John Kerry is a war hero. He has the medals to prove it and the testimony and support of the men who served with him. For a liberal Senator from Massachusetts running for president in 2004, these military bona fides were critical to his image, stature and credibility.

Then along came the television ads from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The ads were devastating. Extremely simple and effectively produced, they were a direct attack on Senator Kerry’s war record, his honesty and fitness to serve. Ironically, the credibility of the ads themselves have been a source of much debate. The general consensus is they were at best misleading and at worse defamatory. Yet they were inarguably effective. According to Wikipedia, when the ads first appeared 24 percent of swing voters believed there was some truth to the charges against Senator Kerry.

The Swift Boat ads were just one of the reasons Senator Kerry narrowly lost the 2004 race against President George W. Bush, but they were no doubt a factor. And the ads became a verb. Swiftboating an opponent is now a part of America’s political lexicon.

Unlike the Swift Boat Veterans who sought to destroy the Kerry campaign, Reverend Jeremiah Wright meant no harm to Senator Barack Obama. Yet his rise to prominence in the campaign may have the same impact. Senator Obama’s standing among Democrats and, most significantly, among independents, took a heavy blow when videos of Reverand Wright’s sermons hit the Internet. For example, Senator John McCain now leads Senator Obama by seven points overall — and even more among independents — since the controversy, according to polls conducted by Rasmussen Reports. And these polls were conducted after Senator Obama’s eloquent speech addressing the issue.

The Pastor Wright controversy will have little impact on passionate partisans. Strong supporters of Senator Obama remain strong supporters. Those who weren’t going to vote for him before are perhaps more passionate in their opposition, but he didn’t have their votes to begin with. The same could be said of Senator Kerry’s supporters — and opponents — in light of the Swift Boat ads. The damage to Senator Kerry, and now to Senator Obama, is among swing voters.

Few thinking Americans seriously believe Senator Obama shares the anger at and condemnation of America expressed by Reverend Wright. In fact, Senator Obama has explicitly repudiated those statements. But his minister’s statements have raised questions about the Senator, questions that go to the core of Senator Obama’s public persona. Can he really bring people together? Does he really represent a break with the divisive politics of the past? Is he a really a candidate that transcends his race and speaks to and for all Americans?

Reverend Wright’s words undermine his parishioner’s greatest strength and it attacks it among the portion of the electorate he needs most — swing voters. Not surprisingly, according to Rasmussen Reports, Senator Obama’s approval rating has dropped below 50 percent for the first time. Reverend Wright has done what Senator Obama’s opponents could not do: they have made Senator Obama “just another politician” in the eyes of many voters.

Can Senator Obama recover from this fall from grace? Probably. In my view he is a different kind of politicians, representative of a new generation of leadership that has the best chance of bringing the country together again.

Besides, something like this was bound to happen eventually. Senator Obama has created tremendous expectations, but he is, after all, only human. At some point his human failings would take center stage. Senator Obama is capable of countering the blistering attacks coming his way, but it won’t be easy. He not only needs to convince voters to trust him again, but more importantly in a purely crass political context, he needs to convince super delegates he is convincing voters to trust him again. Those party leaders are looking for the Democratic nominee who can win in November. If the conventional wisdom settles on a belief that Senator Obama has taken irreparable damage, those super delegates won’t hesitate to turn to Senator Hillary Clinton.

The timing works in Senator Obama’s favor. With a month to go before the Pennsylvania primary Senator Obama has enough time to turn things around, to prove he can deal with the controversy. But if he’s unable to overcome the swiftboating from his own minister, well, it’s probably better for Democrats to know that now than than in the fall.

Economy is Top Presidential Issue

Every quarter the Kaiser Family Foundation publishes a survey on what issues matter to voters. The new poll is out and, for the first time, the economy is preceived as more important than Iraq or health care. Health care reform remains a critical issue, especially among Democrats, but the cumulative impact of the mortgage crisis, rising gas prices and the general feeling of financial unease has clearly shifted voter thinking.

If you’re interested in learning more, I’ve added a post to my health care reform blog discussing the poll.

Oh What Tangled Webs They Weave

It’s not easy being a political spinner. You need to be able to say the most outrageous things with a straight face and then hope someone takes you seriously. Senator Hillary Clinton employs some of the best, but they’ve got their work cut out for them this week. And so far their efforts are, at best sad. And bordering on embarassing. For example, in a conference call with reporters today, Chief Clinton Campaign Strategist Mark Penn claimed Senator Barack Obama must win all four of the states voting on March 4th or recognize that Democratic voters are feeling “buyers remorse.” Excuse me?

Just a week ago President Bill Clinton was claiming that his wife must win primiaries in Texas and Ohio or acknowledge defeat. A United Press International story quoted him as saying “If she wins in Texas and Ohio, I think she will be the nominee. If you don’t deliver for her then I don’t think she can.”

That, however, was on February 21st. In those long ago days, most polls showed Senator Clinton leading Senator Obama in Texas. Now she trails him. Back then polls showed Senator Clinton led Senator Obama in Ohio by eight or more points in most polls. He’s since cut that lead by at least half.

In other words, the odds of Senator Clinton carrying both Texas and Ohio are shrinking faster than her lead among super delegates. Having boxed themselves into needing to sweep those states, the Clinton spinners are in trouble.  They could say that, upon further consideration, she now only needs to win either Texas or Ohio. But that’s pretty lame. And she could lose both states.

So where’s the good news heading into March 4th? Rhode Island. Polls still show Senator Clinton leading Senator Obama in Rhode Island by double digits. (Senator Obama seems to have a lock on the fourth state voting that day — Vermont.) So the Clinton campaign spinis that Senator Obama must win four-out-of-four next Tuesday in order to force Senator Clinton out of the race. Otherwise, there’s clearly a growing groundswell against his candidacy.

Say what? The Clinton firewall has shrunk from Ohio and Texas to Rhode Island?

You have to hand it to Mr. Penn. He’s got the straight face part of his job down well. He bolsters this ludicrous contention by noting that Senator Obama’s campaign is likely to outspend the Clinton former juggernaut by $18.4 million to $9.2 million in the four March 4th contests. Apparently, that $9.2 million difference explains what happened to the 20 percent+ lead in Ohio Senator Clinton enjoyed just two weeks ago. What does Mr. Penn have to say about support for his candidate that is so tenuous a few million dollars in advertising can bust it loose?

Still, it’s kind of sad. Less than two months ago, Senator Clinton’s success was inevitable. She was going to wrap up the nomination by Super Tuesday. Now, her presidential dreams depend on … wait for it … the small, but mighty … the Ocean State … yes … on Rhode Island.

OK. Clearly the Clinton campaign is trying to lower expectations. This being America, the land of 24 hour commercials interrupted by occasional news cable channels, the Clinton campaign spin will get some attention. Some of the media might even bite. If it becomes conventional wisdom, Mr. Penn will have done his job. But the odds of that are slight.

Here’s a suggestion to the Clinton campaign: just say Senator Clinton is going to continue fighting for this nomination until it’s clear one of the two candidates has wrapped up enough delegates to win. Period. No arbitrary tests. No must-wins. No spin. Just count the delegates.

This kind of honest approach would be refreshing. Surprising, but refreshing. But can Senator Clinton and her team can break the spinning habit. It apparently is a hard one to break.

Clinton Showing Signs of Desperation

Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is becoming desperate and it shows. The once inevitable 44th President of the United States is on the verge of losing her dream, so the desperation is understandable. The danger, however, is that if she fails to handle her looming defeat well, she’s likely to harm her party’s chances in November and damage her own reputation and standing among Democrats.

The reason for her desperation? She’s on a major losing streak. Senator Barack Obama has won primaries or caucuses in 10 states plus the one for Democrats Abroad. Yes, Senator Obama was expected to win those states, but not by the margin he earned. The Clinton campaign, spent considerable resources and time in Wisconsin, only to lose last Tuesday’s primary by an embarrassing 17 points.

But that’s not the only depressing news for Senator Clinton and her team. Since early February, Senator Obama has been consistently leading her in national polls according to RealClearPolitics.com, which tracks these things. In the past four weeks the Obama campaign has raised substantially more money, garnered more big-time endorsements, drawn bigger crowds and all but guaranteed he’ll arrive at the Democratic nominating convention in August having won more delegates. (According to the Associated Press, Senator Clinton needs to win approximately 57 percent of the remaining delegates to overtake her rival’s count.)

Senator Clinton claims to already possess the maturity and experience required of a president. The core of her campaign message is that she has the solutions to fix the nation’s problems and is ready to start on Day One — no assembly required. So here she is, facing a crisis — she’s may lose the nomination. How does she handle it?

In the run-up to Wisconsin her campaign turned increasingly negative. It didn’t work. She’s declared the primaries in Ohio and Texas as where she’ll turn the campaign around. She still has a substantial lead in those states, but Senator Obama is whittling away at them.

Her response: go even more negative. After all, if it didn’t work in Wisconsin, why not pour it on? According to the Washington Post, Senator Clinton is launching a new offensive against Senator Obama that “flatly asserts her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination is not prepared to serve as commander in chief.”

OK, as charges go, there are far more vicious or nasty ones. It’s absolutely appropriate for her to claim her long experience better qualifies her to lead the free world. And charges like this are nothing new: the first President George Bush made them about her husband back in 1992.

But Senator Clinton is no longer saying she’s better qualified, she’s saying Senator Obama is not qualified. And that’s stepping over the line. First, because it’s not true. He’s at least as qualified, if not more so, than then Governor Bill Clinton was in that 1992 campaign.

Second, these are the kind of charges that come back to haunt a candidate — and the candidate’s party. These are the charges that show up in Republican commercials in the fall. You can almost hear Senator John McCain in an October debate with Senator Obama claiming, “I’m not the one saying you’re not qualified to be president — Senator Clinton is saying it.” That’s not the kind of moment that will endear her to Democratic voters going forward.

Senator McCain has shown a willingness to follow Senator Clinton’s lines of attack. After his win in Wisconsin, Senator McCain pledged to “… fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure that Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change,” a statement that could have been come verbatim from Senator Clinton.

It’s totally appropriate for Senator Clinton to draw distinctions between herself and her opponent. But statements she’ll need to eat when she endorses him in August aren’t necessary. First, they don’t work well. She’s been denegrating his experience for weeks yet he’s now the frontrunner. Second, it plays to Senator Obama’s strength as the candidate who wants to set aside the old politics of rigid ideology and nasty politics.

By going negative she gives him the opportunity to respond, as he did in the Washington Post story with statements like “Today, Senator Clinton told us there is a choice in this race, and I couldn’t agree with her more. But contrary to what she was saying, it’s not a choice between speeches and solutions. It’s a choice between the politics of divisions and distractions that did not work in South Carolina, that did not work in Wisconsin and that will not work in Texas.”  You don’t win political contests by allowing your opponent to remind voters why he’s the better candidate.

Senator Clinton has been counted out before. The New Hampshire primary was just two months ago. Significantly, her come from behind win there was not the result of going negative. On the contrary, it was because she showed herself as a human being, not just a politician, that surprised the pundits.

Tonight’s debate will see whether it’s the lessons of New Hampshire or Wisconsin that she’s taken to heart.

The Magical Art of Politics

One of the keys to a successful magic trick is not letting the audience know when the trick actually occurs. It’s called misdirection. When the audience thinks the magician is simply cutting cards or straightening cups, that’s when the “magic” often occurs. The banter, the smiles, the music, it’s all there to keep the audience distracted from what’s really going on.

When attention is brought to bear on a single act — the tapping of a wand, the tugging on a silk scarf — that’s when the audience thinks the slight-of-hand is at play. But in reality, all the magician is likely doing is, well, tapping a wand or tugging on a scarf.

Magic and politics have a lot in common. The principles say one thing and do another. The simplest of accomplishments are touted as earthshaking. However, at the end of the day, finding the Ace of Spades inside a lemon is pretty spiffy, but it’s not turning the economy around. And neither will a few hundred dollars in rebate checks.

And the best in the fields of magic and politics are masters of misdirection. 

Consider: Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been telling the audience — the media, pundits and public — to focus on Ohio and Texas. That’s where she’ll prove she’s the inevitable nominee, break the momentum of Senator Barack Obama and, if not quite able to overtake him in the delegate count, positioning herself to pull that rabbit out of her hat on April 22nd in Pennsylvania. Everything between Super Tuesday and March 4th is just so much hoopla to be ignored — focus on Ohio and Texas.

Yet at the same time, Senator Clinton is spending significant time and money in Wisconsin hoping for a bit of magic this Tuesday. Her campaign is spinning expectations so low that merely being on the ballot would count as a victory. That’s called banter. In the mean time, she’s cutting cards, palming quarters, and priming the gaff to keep the state close and, if miracles come true, actually win. Polls show the race close, albeit with Senator Obama in the lead. But a five point lead, which, give or take, is where things stand, can evaporate overnight. Just ask Senator Obama’s New Hampshire staff.

Even if she doesn’t win Wisconsin, keeping the race close helps the Clinton campaign in two ways. First, the campaign is all about delegates. Since they’re divvied up proportionally, an effort in Wisconsin should get her a good share of them. Second, it mitigates against a blowout that the Obama campaign could use to close the gap in Ohio and Texas. Keeping it close, on the other hand, allows her campaign to claim we’ve witnessed Senator Obama’s high water mark.

So the misdirection is a no lose situation for her. As long as she can keep everyone talking about Ohio and Texas on March 4th, she has only upside in Wisconsin on February 19th. That’s the magical art of politics.

Results of the Third Unscientific Presidential Survey

Results from the third Alan Katz Politics Blog Unscientific Presidential Survey are in. As has been the case in the real world, we had a record breaking turnout for this poll. Also for the first time, the number of Democrats and Republicans participating in the poll were the same, each representing 40 percent of the total.

Democrats: Super Tuesday was pretty much a tie in the real world. They both won a number of states, their total popular vote was extremely close, and their delegate totals were neck-and-neck. In our survey, however,  Senator Barack Obama was the clear winner over Senator Hillary Clinton. Based on the demographics of their core supporters, this would imply that more readers of this blog hang out at Starbucks rather than WalMart and are less than 60 years old. There was a small group of Democrats responding to the survey that were still pining for former Senator John Edwards and hadn’t yet decided who their new candidate would be. Presumably they decided by Tuesday night.

More than 60 percent of the Democrats could not see themselves voting for a Republican in the fall. Of those who could, Senator John McCain and former Governor Mitt Romney split their vote, with former Governor Mike Huckabee had only one Democrat willing to vote for him in the general election.

Republicans: Senator McCain may have been the big winner on Super Tuesday, but it was a lot closer among the respondents to this survey. Senator McCain edged out Governor Romney and the comeback kid, Governor Huckabee finished a distant third. When second choices were counted, Governor Romney closed the gap while Governor Huckabee remained an also ran.

The vast majority of Republicans are unwilling to consider voting for a Democrat in November, but among the few who would, Senators Obama and Clinton split their votes.

Independents: Both Senators Obama and McCain have received significant support from independents. In fact, without their support, Senator McCain would be unlikely to be the GOP frontrunner. In our unscientific survey, Senator Obama was the clear winner among unaffiliated voters.

Heads-up: Participants in the survey were able to vote in six hypothetical general election match-ups. The results were a clean sweep by Senator Obama who outpolled each of the GOP candidates by more than 15 percentage points. Senator Clinton bested Governor Romney and Huckabee, but by a much smaller margin. And she lost to Senator McCain by over five percent.

What does all this mean? Well, it was an unscientific survey, so not much. Of course, believers in Creative Design should have no problem giving credence to this poll, in which case it clearly shows Senator Obama would be the strongest Democrat and Senator McCain the strong Republican in the general election. But that’s obvious from real world elections, too.

Pre-Super Tuesday Unscientific Presidential Survey

With former Senator John Edwards and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani dropping out of the race, the choices voters face heading into Super Tuesday’s coast-to-coast primaries is a lot clearer. So let’s see where readers of these blogs are at.

The third unscientific survey is here and will remain open until 5:00 on February 5th, before the first states report their results (I hope). This round, instead of just stating your preference for your party’s nominee, you’ll get to consider possible general election match-ups, too.

Your votes are anonymous and it only takes a minute to complete the survey (literally a minute). I hope you’ll participate. After all, the more the merrier.

Please click here to take the survey.