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.
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posted May 1, 2008 at 6:50 am
It is good to have a positive outlook for the future but it is always important to acknowledge that from which we have been born out of and experienced in our lives. We cannot turn our backs to injustice, because injustice is in our face; we cannot turn our backs to poverty because poverty is part of our culture; we cannot turn our back on those who have no health care as almost half of our people have no medical care and our nation is dying; we cannot turn our backs on crime because crime is coming through our back door; we cannot turn our backs on the financial recession that we are experiencing and the joblessness of the people in the United States of America because they are not even on the unemployment roles anymore, they are on the welfare roles and we are creating another welfare state of people who are mentally and physically disabled who could be working if we helped them; we cannot turn our backs on muslim extremist because a suicide bomber may end up in your church one day; we cannot turn our backs on crime because crime is coming through our back doors; we cannot turn our backs on liberty just because our basic freedoms have been taken away by a dictatorial government who wants to tap our phones and listen in on our conversations and our personal lives to see if we are doing anything to undermine them. Is this the nation that we have grown up to love and respect. Is BIG BROTHER WATING YOU? ARE WE AUTOMOTONS? IS THIS WHAT WE WANT TO BE? We have built a Nation of the Halves and the Have Nots instead of One Nation Indevisible by God for Liberty and Justice for All. We Need to work toward helping the weak become strong and bring back the trust that we have in our BILL OF RIGHTS back to the American Public. That is what is RIGHT and that is what Reverend Wright tries to say in his own way, whether wright or wrong and you have got to love him Obama even though he is controversial.