"This is killer in the heartland"

[zabet]

Dem Strategist on Obama Pastor: 'This is killer in the heartland'



The Brody File received an e-mail this morning from a key Democratic strategist who tells me the following when it comes to the controversy surrounding Barack Obama's pastor:

"This is killer and I don't think the Obama camp gets how lethal this stuff can be. It's the problem with appealing to ivory tower and young folks and surrounding yourself with such. This is killer in the heartland and regular white voters.

The initial response by Sean Casey on ABC where he basically accused the press of being racist is not going to work either. What is so killer about this is that it goes right at Obama's strength and his unifying/non-angry black man image. And the initial response of being defensive or angry just isn't going to cut it.

The next questions that will happen on the blogs and news is how would people react if a white pastor was saying similar stuff and they'll start drawing parallels to the attacks on Bush for just going once to Bob Jones. This won't go away, and it is how Clinton can win the super-delegates despite losing the state delegates. Unless Obama's camp can get this turned around quickly, I think it very well could be the "Swift Boat" point of this race --though in my mind, this is a fair question-- where the wheels start to come off the bus."

This Democratic strategist does not want his name revealed so he can speak more freely about the controversy, but suffice to say that this person is very much up to speed on the latest campaign happenings.

http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/339222.aspx

[libbygurl]

1. Many good points made here by the Dem strategist.

- especially about surrounding oneself with ivory tower academics, naive and idealistic young people who may be out of touch with the heartland. It's all well and good to harbour these POVs (and I don't disagree myself with some of JW's points - many of us here don't), but to have him breathing fire like that while calling whites 'the enemy', saying 'God damn America' - these will not play well at all in middle America. Even I felt disturbed by his rage-filled demagoguery.

I'm not sure that a few (hesitant? I didn't watch the shows) statements denouncing his former pastor's words from BO - his 'mentor' and 'spiritual advisor', too! - will be enough to put out the fire for some. One also wonders if some who voted for BO in earnest are now rethinking their choice. So much for the candidate of 'hope' and 'unity'.

And pardon my ignorance, but who's Sean Casey?

[zabet]

2. No pardon neeeded....I had to look him up myself.

Obama's Spiritual Guide: 'God Damn America'
By Mark Finkelstein | March 13, 2008 - 10:40 ET

At the end of a Good Morning America segment today about Barack Obama's pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., an Obama campaign representative complained that John McCain's pastor had not been similarly "vetted." If that's true, then ABC or some other media outlet surely should and will do so.

Let's imagine that upon vetting, McCain's pastor is found to have made statements that were the mirror-image of those that Rev. Wright has made. How long would McCain remain a viable candidate? Judge for yourself, based on Rev. Wright's statements as exposed in the GMA segment that was the result of work by ABC's chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross. GMA aired a number of clips from sermons Rev. Wright gave at his Trinity United Church of Christ.

JEREMIAH WRIGHT: "The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God Bless America? No, no, no! Not God bless America. God damn America! It's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating its citizens as less than human!"

Cut to clip of Obama saying "I don't think my church is particularly controversial." Really? In another sermon, Ross states that Wright "refers to the U.S. as being under the influence of the Ku Klux Klan."

WRIGHT: And they will not only attack you if you try to point out what's going on in white America, the U.S. of KKK A."

ROSS: He regularly mocks black Republicans as sell-outs.

WRIGHT: They live below the sea level, they live below the level of "Clarence Colon" and "Con-damn-nesia."

ROSS: In his first sermon after September 11th, 2001, Reverend Wright said the U.S. had brought on the attacks with its own terrorism.

WRIGHT: We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant?! Because the stuff we have done overseas is not brought back into our front yard? Americans chickens are coming home to roost.

Ross quoted Obama as saying that Wright is "like an old uncle who sometimes says things I don't agree with."

That Obama advisor then appeared, Shaun Casey, a professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC.

CHRIS CUOMO: You heard Brian's piece. Given what Reverend Wright has said over the years, much of which would be considered over the line politically, should Senator Obama separate himself from the reverend he calls his "spiritual guide"?

SHAUN CASEY: I think Senator Obama's been very clear that he disagrees with Reverend Wright on a number of the specific issues you've just shown in the story. I think it's unfair to hold any politician to the political views of their particular pastor and I think it's unfair to hold any pastor to the political views of congregants. It's part of the great American tradition that many congregations are composed of folk who have a wide variety of political views. So I don't think Senator Obama really has any more to say than what you showed in that piece.

CUOMO: But is there a responsibility as a candidate for president to associate yourself, certainly as a spiritual advisor, with ideas that are consistent with your campaign? Senator Obama said his campaign is about moving away from divisive politics, from sniping and attacks. And then, to say your spiritual advisor is a man who says America should be damned? That it is to blame for 9-11? That Farrakhan deserves an award for epitomizing greatness? Does that go together?

CASEY: I think he's repudiated that very clearly. If you had any evidence that in fact Senator Obama had embraced those views we would see that in the piece. But the fact that you didn't have any video of Senator Obama embracing those views, in fact he's repudiated those views, I think it's very clear. I mean, it's interesting to me you haven't vetted Hillary Clinton's pastor's sermons, you haven't vetted President Bush's pastor's sermons. You haven't vetted John McCain's pastor's sermons. So, you're not holding them to that standard, which I think is very interesting.

CUOMO: And you believe that what the reverend has said doesn't go beyond the pale of what he preaches in terms of religion, it doesn't deserve any more scrutiny than that? It doesn't have anything to do with politics? This is just the media picking on Senator Obama?

CASEY: No. It's fair to ask those questions. But what you have to accept Senator Obama's answers that he repudiates those specific political views on the three or four issues that you've outlined. And I think you have to take his word for that. It seems to me what you're trying to do is what some of the media tried to do to John Kennedy in 1960, that because he was a Catholic he must embrace certain political views the Catholic church held and he denied those, and he denied those for about a four-year period. And it really wasn't until the actual election itself that the American public understood that he was able to separate himself from some of the political views of his church. I think it's the same dynamic that's going on here.

CUOMO: When people hear what Reverend Wright has to say, they may be concerned that that is the spiritual adviser for Senator Obama. How do you respond to that?

CASEY: The way to judge Senator Obama's spirituality and faith is to read what he has written, listen to the speeches which he has given, which again you showed no clips from. This man has spoken at greater length about his faith than any current candidate for the presidency of the United States. Follow what Senator Obama says on policy, follow what he says about his own spirituality, don't impute positions to him from his minister. That's only fair.

Let's begin by giving kudos to Brian Ross for his investigative work, to ABC for airing the segment and to Chris Cuomo for posing some probing questions to Obama representative Casey.

That said, if this had been a Republican candidate, could he possibly have come so far as to get his party's nomination before this kind of piece had been aired? And would the person in Cuomo's position simply have been asking whether the Republican needed to "separate himself" from the minister? Would there not be clamoring for the Republican's outright withdrawal from the race?

Let's consider Casey's defense: that ABC is doing to Obama what some in the media did to JFK in 1960. But Kennedy was born into a worldwide religion. Here, Obama as an adult chose to become a congregant in a very specific church, and chose that church's leader as his personal "spiritual advisor." He chose Rev. Wright to perform his wedding ceremony and to baptize his children, and credits Rev. Wright with devising the title of Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope."

This was not just simple membership in one of the world's great religions. It was Obama's decision to very closely associate himself with this congregation and its pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. Were the shoe on a Republican foot, would the MSM not have long-ago driven him from the race?

Michelle Malkin: "Now we know where Michelle Obama’s resentment of America comes from: her profanity-spewing pastor."

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2008/03/13/could-mccain-be-candidate-pastor-obamas-god-damn-america-wright

:hi: I just learned how to make it in a colored block like that.. :blush:

[libbygurl]

3. Thanks! Actually, BO's saying his church isn't 'particularly controversial' can also be seen as...

...confirming that he DOES agree with what J Wright says in these sermons, doesn't it? I mean, really, as I posted elsewhere, you have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not know what the preacher says - he even sells video of his incendiary prose!

Heh-heh, I also figured out a few days ago how to use those HTML codes to post quoted passages! Works very well, don't they?

And here's a good morning to ya, CJ! :hi:

[zabet]

4. Yes. This is one thing that O's circular explanation

may actually come back and bite him
in the ass.

We are supposed to trust O's deductive
and reasoning skills when dealing with
global leaders. If he could not see this
with 20 years of friendship, how can we
expect him to see and understand any of
the foreign policy ploys and how to use
them to our benefit? If he told the truth,
then leaders like Putin will play him like
a fiddle, like they did chimpy.


:hi: Good morning to you too! lg!!!

[libbygurl]

6. He's either very naive, or just plain lying about it.

Either way, he doesn't inspire any trust in him as a strong, intelligent and SMART leader of this country. Says a lot about his judgment, indeed. A babe in the political woods - he needs seasoning (at the very least). His pol strategist, Axelrod, might be a clever one, using the race card and all for the primaries, but with this highly controversial pastor whom he's called so many times as his spiritual and political advisor (he checked with him before running for prez), his guy is toast in the GE. The GOP will really dig up stuff more damaging than this to use against him then. He had better get used to these swiftboat tactics, since he's mostly coasted along to become the frontrunner with the help of the useless Fourth Estate here.

We've been saying all along that he hasn't been vetted, which his peeps refused to acknowledge - and then now they complain about these attacks on him - something Hillary is so used to by now after more than a decade of swiftboating, and knows how to deal with them - while still smiling.

[zabet]

8. Hillary takes swiftboating like

a duck in water..she lets it roll off of
her back while smiling.
Obama takes swiftboating like he is fighting
gators with a dull butter knife, lots of thrashing
and splashing but, he cannot kill the beast.

[DURHAM D]

5. Heartland that -

I have been on the phone for two days with Democrats from the Heartland. They have been calling me since I am from the Heartland but now live on the coast. They all just want to make sure that I understand what a colossal shit storm Obama's "church" is for him.

BTW - if he ever had a chance of winning Kansas its gone now.

[zabet]

7. Yup.

My Dad has family in Iowa and I have received
countless emails from them outraged at these
comments by Rev. Wright.
It is having the tidal wave ripple effect that
we will not see the total effect of unless O is
the nominee, then it will be sorely evident when
McCain is elected in the GE.

[DURHAM D]

10. Yep - and will fly under the msm radar for now.

The msm has not done their job so they are hoping this will just go away. That's what happens when the media is northeastcentric.

[NCarolinawoman]

11. Will probably be discussed on the Sunday talk shows.

Some of the talking heads will equate it with Ferraro (how do you spell her name?) to neutralize this. That doesn't really work if the minister's video is shown--just too incendiary.

As time goes by, and the video is not shown as much, some foolish Democrats will have convinced themselves that "it" has all gone away. Of course if Obama is our nominee. it will surface again 24/7. I fear that it will effect any coat-tails he may have had in the red and purple states. Is Clair McCasskil really comfortable with this?

I wonder how all those military officers--the ones that stood behind him the other day, feel about this? Most of them were Air force and often the Air force officers are the most Conservative of the flag wavers. McPeak, Obama's main spokesman, who actually voted for *W* first time around, must not know what to say.

[DURHAM D]

13. i think you are right about tomorrow's talk shows.

However, I don't think they have any real chance of "getting it". They will try to diminish the effect. Which is probably in their script for now. Put the story to sleep so Obama can get out to the general and then here we go big time.

Funny you mentioned Claire. I just got off a three way conversation with friends from Oklahoma and Kansas discussing Obama's VP choice. Frankly, I think he is poison now for any up-and-comer. We decided, however, that McCaskill is enough of a fool she would jump at the chance to be on the ticket.

[JohnnyLib2]

9. !!

:kick:

[DemCam]

12. And then the famous interview with Wright tell O he'll have to distance himself.

What, nearly a year ago? And he "didn't know". How can we in all good conscience go down that road.

Of course he knew.

And the contribution to the church? last year?

My question becomes....How did he expect this not to be raked over and over when it was all in plain view
from the very beginning? He even wrote about it boldly in his books.

Is the answer hubris? inexperience with a national campaign. As some of said, he's never met a Republican
opponent. In fact, he's never met a viable candidate of any kind.

Naivety? That is the most terrfying explanation of all. Besides outright lying, of course.

[judaspriestess]

14. I'm not white but I am American and I find these sermons

terribly offensive, divisive and mean spirited. Its worrisome.

[libbygurl]

17. Agree with you, and I'm not white, either. Don't think you have to be so to recognise the...

...repulsive and divisive nature of those sermons. Just need to use common sense.

[LadyVT]

15. Obama said he goes to Wright before making important political decisions

According to the L.A. Times this morning.

[libbygurl]

16. Yup, that was in one of his books, too. J Wright is clearly a major influence on his thinking,

...and decision-making.

Oh, just look at Mrs O and her odd remarks - I'm not the only one who noticed how similar her ideas were to JW's.