April 2008 Archives

For an organization with an axe to grind with John McCain, Family Research Council Action sure likes his health care plan. This is from an FRC Action email update that just went out:

A Man with a Plan

Spending isn't the only area where Sen. John McCain and his rivals disagree. Yesterday, the Arizona senator unveiled his market-based health care plan, which stands in stark contrast to the universal coverage that Sens. Clinton and Obama are proposing. For starters, McCain's plan is based on the philosophy that individuals and families should benefit from the health care system--not employers. Under his initiative, Americans would get the significant tax relief, including a $5,000 family tax credit, for insurance that is "tailored to their health care needs and not tied to a particular job." In a recent speech, McCain described his idea this way, "It would help change the whole dynamic of the current system... forcing companies to respond with better service at lower cost." Instead of empowering Washington bureaucrats to make decisions about a patient's needs, McCain's solution would give Americans control over their costs and care. While the plan is far from perfect, it does incorporate family-friendly principles that FRC favors. It also relies on market competition, one of our nation's unique strengths, as its foundation rather than overbearing government regulation.

Is this a sign that McCain has finally given Christian Right groups some behind-the-scenes love? God-o-Meter is checking into the possibility.

The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reports that Democratic congressional candidate Travis Childers has issued a reponse ad distancing himself from Barack Obama--and, implicitly, Rev. Jeremiah Wright--after his Republican opponent released an ad lashing Childers to Obama/Wright a few days ago. The Mississippi special election--voting day is May 13--could be a test for how effective (or not) Wright/Obama ads will be in scores of competitive races this fall. It's too early to tell whether Obama's Wright denouncement will render such ads obsolete six months from now, in the heat of the general election. If Childers pulls out a victory, though, it could scare off the GOP from invoking Wright this fall. If he loses, Democrats better watch out.

Former Bill Clinton political advisor Dick Morris says today that the Wright crisis gives Obama a major opportunity to define himself against the archetypal Angry Black Man:

But if Wright has come to be the poster child for what America fears in a black public figure, he gives Obama an opportunity to be the opposite. By playing off Wright, by attacking his views in depth and detail, Obama can define himself as the un-Wright, reassuring Americans and carving out his identity in opposition to the reverend's rantings. Obama has always implicitly defined himself as the opposite of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. He runs not as a black man seeking the presidency, but as a post-racial political leader who happens to have a dark complexion.

There are already signs that Obama is adopting this strategy. Look at today's Obama endorsement from Indiana Congressman Baron Hill. Here's what Hill said in his endorsement statement:

"Some have advised me to be cautious, to wait and see which way the electoral winds may blow. I confess that I have listened to those voices and been tempted by their reasoning. But, the stakes are just too high. We cannot continue to pursue the same politics of personal destruction we have engaged in for a generation, some never-ending “groundhog day” endlessly playing out the cultural wars of forty years ago. ....I am pleased that Senator Obama clearly and unequivocally denounced Reverend Wright’s remarks. Hoosiers don’t feel that way about our country, I don’t feel that way about our country and Senator Obama made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t feel that way either. His comments regarding statements made by Reverend Wright showed me another aspect of Senator Obama’s leadership – a strength of character and commitment to our nation that transcends the personal. One of the tests of a true leader is his ability and willingness to come to a new conclusion based on new events. Senator Obama did just that yesterday.

Who better to testify to Obama's defining himself as the anti-Wright that a culturally conservative white Democrat like Hill? But the Obama messaging team will have to work overtime and then some to get that word out. And Obama himself doesn't want to talk about Wright one minute more, so surrogates and the press team will have to do the heavy lifting. Watch for them to echo that line through the remainder of the week.

In Hillary Clinton's new Indiana ad, she mentions that her "mother taught Sunday school." Speaking of which, does Obama's pastor controversy make it much easier for Clinton to showcase her faith from here on out, since Obama threatens to dredge up Wright associations by showcasing his?

One of the key arguments Jeremiah Wright has advanced in defending himself against charges of radicalism is that criticisms of him by the news media and by conservatives represent an attack on the entire black church. God-o-Meter, though, has been struck by the number of religious experts who've noted that Wright's Church, Trinity UCC, is not a typical black church--that it's much more progressive, intellectual, and affluent.

Quoting from an Obama biography, The New Republic's Noam Scheiber argues that those qualities--at least the first two--are what drew Obama to Wright in the 1980s:

Wright remains a maverick among Chicago's vast assortment of black preachers. He will question Scripture when he feels it forsakes common sense; he is an ardent foe of mandatory school prayer; and he is a staunch advocate for homosexual rights, which is almost unheard-of among African-American ministers. Gay and lesbian couples, with hands clasped, can be spotted in Trinity's pews each Sunday. Even if some blacks consider Wright's church serving only the bourgeois set, his ministry attracts a broad cross section of Chicago's black community. Obama first noticed the church because Wright had placed a "Free Africa" sign out front to protest continuing apartheid. The liberal, Columbia-educated Obama was attracted to Wright's cerebral and inclusive nature, as opposed to the more socially conservative and less educated ministers around Chicago. Wright developed into a counselor and mentor to Obama as Obama sought to understand the power of Christianity in the lives of black Americans, and as he grappled with the complex vagaries of Chicago's black political scene.

That helps explain why Obama grew close enough to Wright to consider him family. But it also sheds some light on Wright's fierce iconoclastic streak, which has come back to haunt Obama. Rather than exemplifying the black church, Wright seemed to have rebelled against it. He did the same thing to Obama this week.