Hillary still has a chance.

Most pundits are telling Senator Hillary Clinton that it’s all over but the shouting.  The math is against her.  However, the math is also currently against Senator Obama – neither candidate can earn the needed majority in the remaining primaries.  The decision will be made by the Democrat’s “super delegates,” who are not obligated to decide who they support until the convention – and they are empowered to change their allegiance at any time, based on their “read” of what’s best for the party.

This means that until that Convention, Hillary still has a chance.

Conventional wisdom among those who pretend to know why Senator Clinton is hanging in there say she’s waiting – and hoping for – an Obama scandal that will make Reverend Wright look like a footnote.  Because Senator Obama is so little known among the public, they’ve got their fingers crossed that some scandal that’s worse than Reverend Wright will surface, and surface soon enough to persuade the super delegates that Obama can’t win.

The “sitting and waiting” strategy is out of character for the politically-savvy Clintons – though they may be so shell-shocked from the primary campaign’s insane roller coaster ride.  However, once they have caught their breath, they may decide that the prize is worth exercising Hillary’s “nuclear option” – in effect, using surrogates to nuke Senator Obama so thoroughly that they will create that Obama Can’t Win scandal out of what is already out there.

In this option, Clinton surrogates – those who are obviously in the tank for the Clintons, such as Lanny Davis and Paul Begala, as well as those who are not so obviously affiliated with the Clinton campaign – will carry out the “nuke Obama” strategy on Senator Clinton’s behalf, leaving her hands clean and her reputation unsullied.

What constitutes the Nuclear Option?

Senator Obama has gotten such a near-universal “pass” on his background that there remain potentially troubling elements to his background and life-story.  Bringing these forward now – and painting them in the worst possible light – will have a “death by a thousand cuts” impact on the largely untried Senator from Illinois, who has already shown that he’s not at his best in responding to harsh and unexpected criticism.  Keeping Senator Obama dodging and ducking and bobbling defenses creates two opportunities:

1. Senator Obama’s background will deliver that one “deal-killer” issue that will turn the super delegates away from their popular favorite, or

 

2. The weight of unanswered criticism will collectively convince the super delegates that Senator Obama can’t win – and that the Party needs a win more than it needs Obama

Both options are long shots, to be sure, but there may be enough out there with which to criticize Senator Obama to make the nuclear option at least apparently plausible.  Some might even say that the nuclear option campaign has already begun with Paul Begala’s public pronouncement that the Party Can’t Win by relying on white eggheads and African-Americans, a bombshell he dropped on CNN in a “debate” with Democratic strategist Donna Brazile.

What are the issues that could be included in the Nuclear Option?  Here is a sampling:

 

1. Comb the archives of Trinity Church for a DVD that shows both Reverend Wright making yet one more of his offensively over-the-top statements … and showing Senator Obama in the congregation, listening to his preacher.  Senator Obama skirted responsibility for Wright, in part, by claiming that “I never heard him say that.”  Prove this defense wrong and it will not only tie Obama to Wright, but will paint him as a lying politician – and one not particularly adept at lying.

 

2. Comb the Internet and other sources for home video of a speech that Senator Obama gave in conjunction with unrepentant Weatherman domestic terrorist Bill Ayres – in this way, tie Senator Obama tightly to this radical who’s helped to kill Americans on American soil.  Senator Obama has persuaded the media that he and Ayres are just neighbors – but video that would show them sharing a platform as allies could shake that excuse – and Obama’s credibility.  With such a thin track record, “credibility” is about all that Senator Obama has to offer the Party and the American voters.

 

3. Assuming that Tony Rezko is found guilty in his fraud trial, find some way for prosecutors to offer Tony Rezko a sentencing deal in exchange for offering incriminating testimony that will tie Senator Obama far more closely to this shady political fund-raiser who’s currently in the midst of a bribery trial.  The Rezko story has been largely overlooked by the media – few voters understand the nature of the Rezko/Obama connection – but this Chicago “politics as usual” story of sordid minor-league corruption will further shake the Senator’s image of electability.

 

4. Push forward another story that has been largely ignored by the media – Senator Obama’s radically permissive position favoring “birth control abortions,” on-demand, for minors – and his related view that babies, including his own future grandchildren, are “punishments.”  As explained in American Thinker – one of the very few political media who’ve even noted this statement (http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/obamas_stealth_proabortion_sta.html) – in late March, Senator Obama said:  "Look, I got two daughters - nine years old and six years old. I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."  This is a position that would prove widely unpopular among moderate “values” Democrats and most Independents – in a general election with a pro-life candidate, this issue could be a political deal-breaker.

 

5. Comb Senator Obama’s voting record in the Senate and in the Illinois legislature and find every issue he’s voted for (or against) that – if the vote was known – would make moderate Democrats and Independents uncomfortable with the Senator.  Where possible, find video showing Senator Obama advocating these politically extreme or unpopular positions, making it hard for the Senator to deny that he was “in the pew” when those issues came up for consideration.

 

These five issues – along other issues that cast a bad light on Senator Obama – constitute Senator Clinton’s “nuclear option.”  These issues have been largely ignored, minimized or “put to bed” by the national mainstream political media, including media opinion leaders ranging from the New York Times to CNN, MSNBC and the broadcast news networks .  However, these same issues can be advanced by Clinton surrogates in a way that will force the media to take another look … and force the super delegates to re-think their ultimate choice. 

That is Senator Clinton’s last chance.  She has the opportunity, she has the strategy, and – within her camp – she has the savvy to see how to raise these (and other) issues without leaving finger prints.  Independently, these individual issues are unlikely to be “deal-killers” – but taken together, they might give Democratic Party super delegates reason to reconsider Senator Obama, and move Senator Clinton back into the status of “inevitability.”

 

By Ned Barnett (c) 2008

I have been giving a number of interviews to the media on campaign strategy and tactics - from Neil Cavuto and Fred Imus to Gannett and Newsweek - for media looking for answers, here are a few things you might want to know:

 
·     I have been in politics professionally since the early 70s when I was speechwriter for two governors (one Democrat, one Republican) in South Carolina, writing about economic development issues, my area (at the time) of specialization

 
·         I worked with the late Lee Atwater on the Ford campaign in ’76 (Ford/SC) – I handled strategy and media for Lee, who was at that time the youngest state party chairman of either party – he was 23, and even then he was brilliant

 
·         In spite of my work with Ford, I was recruited to serve on the Press Secretary’s staff in Washington (Carter) – I’d gone to school with several of his people – but was starting a family and didn’t want to uproot that family for what might be a short-term position

 
·         From ’74-’80, I worked on behalf of specific candidates – a Democratic Lt. Governor, during his bid for the Governor’s chair, a Republican Congressman, etc. – working media, strategy and speechwriting (usually focusing on economic development and healthcare – and more generally on business issues rather than social issues)

 
·         In the mid-80s, I took a special post-graduate independent study program in market research; this refined both my research abilities and – more important – my ability to both analyze what research results really mean and to pinpoint Americans’ attitudes (as indicated by – but not always boldly spelled out by – public opinion research)

 
·         After taking time off for a career detour that included (but was not primarily about) lobbying on behalf of hospitals and healthcare organizations, I worked with Perot until he melted down, then became head of strategy and media for Clinton/Gore-Nevada ’92 (Democrats took Nevada for the first time since Truman in ’48)

 
·         After a falling out with the Clinton administration (even before they took office), I focused on working on behalf of more conservative/pro-business associations and advocacy groups (Citizens for a Sound Economy, Citizens for Health, etc.), as well as candidates for state and national office (i.e., Senator)

 
·         Beginning in 2004, I have been – for radio talk shows, print reporters, and now Fox – analyzing candidates statements and actions (their PR) then reverse-engineering those actions to identify the underlying strategies … then critiquing those strategies as being either sound or flawed … and when I do this for the media, I strive to remain solidly non-partisan – I’m not flacking for any one candidate, party or cause, but am able to look at each campaigns’ actions.  In 2004, I did 56 interviews (including five appearances on the Fred Imus show in Tucson), and have done more than a dozen so far this season. Write-ups of some of these “reverse-engineered” strategy critiques can also be found at:  http://barnettonpolitics.blogspot.com/

 

As I write this, Barack Obama has just responded to his pastor, Reverend Wright, over Wright's incendiary comments made Monday at the National Press Club.  Previously, I've have suggested that Senator Obama (and his wife, Michelle) are so in-control that everything they say reflects an underlying strategy.  For example:

• When Michelle said that she'd never before been proud of America, and when she told a major magazine reporter that America was a mean country, she was fulfilling a carefully-wrought strategy - one that worked!  (http://barnettonpolitics.blogspot.com/2008/02/campaign-strategy-watch-ms-obamas-real.html)
• When Senator Obama - speaking of his two daughters and their potential future out-of-wedlock pregnancies - advocated on-demand "convenience" abortions, even for minors; and when in the same statement he identified babies as a "punishment," he was fulfilling another carefully-wrought strategy, another one that worked!  (http://barnettonpolitics.blogspot.com/2008/04/no-foolin-finally-honest-politician.html)

However, in this case, I think the still-leading Democratic candidate is reacting without a strategy, and this "tactics-without-strategy" approach is a disaster waiting to happen.

If nothing else, his response suggests that Senator Obama is far better in a controlled situation than in a spontaneous crisis - it is as if he is validating Senator Clinton's often-mocked "3 a.m. phone call" strategy by demonstrating that Senator Obama is not quick on his feet.

A quick review is in order.

On Saturday night, Reverend Wright gave a masterfully egotistical performance before the Detroit NAACP - in some ways, Wright's NAACP presentation was even more incendiary than his Monday National Press Club performance.  Yet Senator Obama's reaction to this talk - which seemed to validate the views of racial segregationists (among many other time-bombs) was notable - was missing in action.

On Monday morning, Reverend Wright launched his widely-viewed press conference; seven hours later, Senator Obama gave a "tarmac talk" about Wright's talk that was brief, tepid and lacking in emotion.  He merely said that he didn't agree with Wright, and that Wright's views didn't match Obama's own views.

However, when overnight poll numbers showed that Wright's "magical mystery tour" - as Bill O'Reilly derisively called it - Senator Obama staged an angry-response press conference that intended to distance himself from Reverend Wright.  This press conference came more than 24 hours after Wright's press conference, and more than 18 hours after Obama's initial, tepid and dismissive response - one that didn't "play" with the public.

This doesn't speak well for the Senator's ability to respond and react quickly to a breaking crisis, something that Presidents are expected to do.

It goes further - not only did Senator Obama wait more than a day longer than needed before he responded, he left the door wide open to his opponents, those who want to keep the pot boiling.  Senator Obama said, in essence, "this isn't the man I knew 20 years ago."  However, Wright's own record shows that he'd been preaching "black liberation Christianity" for more than 30 years.  By the time Obama first met Wright, the pastor's views had been established and his reputation as a bold conspiracy-theory critic of the American status quo had already grown well beyond Trinity Church.

You can be sure that reporters, bloggers and "opposition research" teams for his two opponents are already combing the archives, looking for proof that Reverend Wright today is EXACTLY the same man Senator Obama met 20 years ago.  Once they find this proof, the whole question of Senator Obama's judgment will come back into play - a judgment that's been challenged by a number of decisions and associations with others. 

• Twenty years ago, he couldn't "read" the views of a well-know black liberation theologian - and it took 20 years and a series of public humiliations before Obama did see through to the core of Wright's own core.
• Thirteen years ago, he couldn't understand that Bill Ayers was an unrepentant home-grown terrorist who was proud of his bombings when he held his first political fund-raiser in Ayers' home. 
  
• Six years ago, in the aftermath of Ayers' ill-timed September 11, 2001 interview in which he said he said:  "I just wished we could have done more" Senator Obama didn't see a problem in continuing to give "tag-team" public lectures and serving on foundation boards with Ayers.
• Three years ago, Obama bought a house at well under market value through the good offices of indicted political fund-raiser and real estate developer Tony Resnick, long after Resnick's shady background and tactics had become widely known in Chicago - including among Chicago's media.
  
• Earlier this year, Senator Obama still didn't understand the implications of his friendship with Ayers when he let stand a spokesman's claim that Ayers and Obama remained friendly.

The bottom line - Senator Obama spoke today without a strategy - he waited too long to say too little, but in his spontaneity, he left the door open for his critics to continue criticizing Obama's judgment about his friends and associates.  When this particular 3 a.m. crisis call  came in, Senator Obama hit the snooze button and rolled over for another 40 winks.

By Ned Barnett (c) 2008

Introduction

Today (Tuesday, April 15th) I read a Townhall column by the National Review's Rich Lowry about Senator Obama's latest dust-up with voters in Pennsylvania – and while Mr. Lowry was generally on-target in his overall analysis, he fell into a long-standing and diabolically-clever Liberal Democrat-sponsored Second Amendment “definition trap" - one that far too many conservatives fall prey to.  Mr. Lowry allowed Senators Obama and Clinton - and, more generally, the anti-gun Democrats and Liberals to define the rules of the debate on the Second Amendment.  This trap is simple:  equate gun ownership to the "right" to hunt or participate in shooting sports (as in Senator Clinton bragging about going duck hunting as a child… a convenient story about as likely to be true as her Bosnian Sniper fairy tale).  The gun-banning Liberals never talk about the real reasons that the Founding Fathers used in their insistence that the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution contain the Second Amendment.  The Second Amendment exists to affirm the inalienable right of all free men (and women) to self-protection from the tyranny of government, as well as self-defense  from criminals.

So, when we let Liberals and Democrats get away with characterizing the Second Amendment as a right for hunters and sportsmen, we’re all falling into their trap.  As Mr. Lowry did.  This is the Liberals' cagy strategem: Americans are far more likely to fight for the right to self-defense than the right to hunt; conversely, they are far more likely to sit idly by while their right to keep and bear arms is redefined - then eroded.  These Liberals and Democrats know that many Americans who carry guns for personal protection don't hunt - and many Americans who hunt don't carry guns for personal protection.  Classic divide and conquer - and in any debate, that begins by getting the opposition to agree to YOUR definition - as Mr. Lowry agreed with his anti-gun opponent's "take" on the real meaning of the Second Amendment.

Which is why I wrote the following respectful open letter to Rich Lowry - and by extension, to all Conservatives who value their inalienable Second Amendment right to self defense - as enshrined in the "right to keep and bear arms."

**************************

A Respectful Open Letter To Rich Lowry of the National Review

Rich

I read your latest Townhall column (Tuesday, April 15) about Senator Obama’s elitism – and from a strategic perspective, I think it’s dead-on.

However, in reading your column, I’m afraid that you’re falling into the trap that Liberals love to set for those of us who value the Second Amendment – the “hunting trap.”  Liberals and Democrats love to characterize gun owners as “hunters” and “sportsmen” … instead of as people who have taken on the solemn responsibility to own (and in many cases, to carry) legal firearms in order to protect and defend themselves and others from criminal intrusions in their lives.  This consistent Democrat-and-Liberal "hunting" characterization is a trap because – ultimately – nobody in America today depends on hunting for survival (suggesting that the Second Amendment is somehow outmoded), and nobody today is so dependent on access to shooting “sports” that their rights to those sports couldn’t be abridged for a “higher purpose” ... a purpose such as disarming law-abiding Americans.

What I’m about to say doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know, but the Second Amendment was not instituted as a means of guaranteeing Americans’ right to hunt (on the American Frontier in the 1780s, the right to feed one's family was a “given”) – instead, the Second Amendment was designed to give private citizens the right to carry arms - muskets and pistols and rifles essentially indistinguishable from military firearms then in use, in order to defend themselves against the depredations of tyrannical government.  The memory of Lexington and King George was fresh in the minds of the framers of our constitution.  A secondary – but not insignificant – Second Amendment consideration was and is personal defense against crime (as exemplified in the 1780s by Indian marauders on the frontier, as well as by more conventional breaking-and-entering type criminals who existed in unwelcome numbers in America's early metropolises).

This right to keep and bear arms is one that Americans take seriously – but it is one that Liberals and Democrats would just as soon we forget about.  That is why these Liberals and Democrats always equate gun ownership with hunting, instead of self-defense. 

Even if Conservatives don't understand the Liberals' strategy, the Democrats understand the uphill battle they fight.  As of February of this year, 48 states had some kind of concealed carry permit laws, and tens of millions of law-abiding Americans have exercised that right to obain CCW permits and to legally carry concealed firearms for legitimate self-defense.  There's an old saying that applies to self defense and the Second Amendment today as well as it did 150 years ago:  "God made man.  Sam Colt made man equal."   When confronted with criminal violence, many Americans know they have two choices - they can be victims, or they can defend themselves.  That is at the heart of the Second Amendment, and that is at the heart of the grass-roots movement to extend "shall issue" CCW laws to all Americans. 

And - because they want Americans dependent, rather than independent - that is why Liberals and Democrats want to redefine the Second Amendment's right to gun ownership as something having to do with "hunting" or "sport."

Some states, of course, are more permissive than others (in my opinion, however, only 39 states have real “shall issue” on demand CCW permit laws, while nine states have less permissive “may issue” laws in which the citizen must first demonstrate a “need” to carry before being issued a license - that "need" often being tied to political contributions to the local Sheriff).  However, in virtually all "shall issue" cases, these laws were driven by the grass roots.  At the local level, state legislators - even doctrinaire Liberal Democrat legislators - recognize that their constituents care enough about this Constitutionally-sanctioned and inalienable right to take actions in their own self-defense.  In fact, only two states – Senator Obama’s Illinois and neighboring Wisconsin (and, of course, the District of Columbia), have no CCW laws.  Since these laws were first enacted - some 20 years ago, some as recently as 2007 - millions of Americans have gone through the permit process.  Florida, for instance, has issued more than 1.2 million CCW permits since passing the law 20 years ago, and more than 400,000 Floridians currently have valid CCW permits.

This right to keep and bear arms in your own self defense is a right that Liberals and Democrats want to take away – which is why these same Liberals and Democrats want to link that right to gun ownership with hunting.  Senator Hillary Clinton, for instance, has recently followed Senator Kerry’s bumbled lead - claiming, as he did in 2004, to be a duck hunter - in order to affirm her support for the Second Amendment.  She's an attorney who studied Constitutional Law (her husband briefly taught the subject before entering politics) - she knows full well that the Second Amendment says nothing about hunting - but it says everything about an armed citizen’s role in maintaining the security of a free state, and by extension, personal security and civil peace. 

So please, Rich, when you're talking about the Second Amendment, don’t fall into the Liberals' and Democrats' trap of equating hunting and "sport shooting" with our inalienable right of self-protection that is at the heart of America's gun owners' right to “keep and bear arms.”

Ned Barnett
Nevada

Ned Barnett © 2008

 

After his stellar performance this morning, as he tried to explain away his pastor, the Reverend Doctor Jeremiah Wright, it is clear to me, as a former campaign speechwriter myself, that Barack Obama is perhaps the most effective speech-reader in American politics today.  His speech was a masterwork of misdirection – a tour de force of the triumph of emotion over logic. It was nothing short of a remarkable “bait-and-switch” – an advertising gambit that “promises one thing and delivers something very much different, without the customer noticing” – that may have saved Obama’s campaign. If so, it succeeded by avoiding the real issue – the candidate’s judgment – that had mushroomed in the past week.

Senator Obama’s campaign is built on two elements – his “post-racial” refusal to let race be an issue, and the Senator’s sound judgment, which more than compensates for his lack of real experience in national government.

Senator Obama’s challenge was daunting.  Americans have been inundated by video clips featuring the Senator’s pastor spewing race-based hatred of America, demonstrating this willingness to believe every wack-job conspiracy theory this side of black helicopters.  To counter this, the Senator had to explain away his own lack of judgment in putting up with such vile blather for twenty years.  That’s what this speech promised – the bait.  What he delivered was something very different – the switch.

Senator Obama carefully – and effectively – addressed some (but by no means all of) the specific hate-filled and conspiratorial positions that his pastor has consistently advocated from the pulpit, drawing each narrowly to minimize their impact.  However, while giving America a fascinating lecture on the history of the “black experience” in America, Senator Obama very effectively changed the subject.  He promised answers and delivered fascinating distraction – executing a classic “bait-and-switch,” one which would have made any Madison Avenue Ad-Man green with envy.

Much of the media is focusing on this remarkable and seemingly candid exploration of race – one of the thorniest issues America has faced since the first African chattel slaves were brought to America.  However, this same media – and, presumably, at least some of the Senator’s large national audience – missed the larger point.  Instead of addressing the issue – his judgment – as promised, Barack Obama gracefully and effectively changed the subject.  Bait-and-Switch. 

No longer is the media focusing on “why did Obama stay in the congregation of a man who clearly hates America and despises whites?” 

No longer are pundits asking “what does this relationship say about Senator Obama’s judgment?” 

Instead, Americans – and the American media – are again marveling at the man’s podium dexterity, a real skill that the Senator cultivated at Harvard and Columbia, then refined in the rough-and-tumble politics of inner-city Chicago. 

As a former speechwriter and ranked intercollegiate debater, I have nothing but raw admiration for Senator Obama’s dual abilities to write and deliver truly remarkable speeches. He does so with a power and style not seen since President Reagan reminded America of the power of the spoken word.  Senator Obama’s skills bring to mind another remarkable orator, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose words and presentation did much to hold together a shaky coalition through both the Great Depression and the world’s greatest war. 

Senator Obama has that gift.

However, he’s used this gift to “bait-and-switch” us away from questioning his judgment and core beliefs, away from thinking about what it means that he sat through 20 years of hate-filled Sunday sermons without hearing anything offensive.  With this bait-and-switch speech, Senator Obama has moved us away from the real issue and toward the open sore of race that has troubled America for centuries – an issue he’d carefully avoided until this speech.

The irony is clear.  Senator Obama has portrayed himself as the man who transcended race, effectively appealing to Americans regardless of their race.  This “post-racial” positioning played nicely into the Senator’s “hope and change” pitch, since nearly all Americans hope to change our historic racial intolerance and move toward a color-blind “all men are created equal” standard. 

But now, thanks to this speech, race is front-and-center in the campaign.  In order to save his campaign from his own remarkably poor judgment – remaining affiliated to a church whose minister damns America and blames our country for 9-11, AIDs and crack cocaine – Senator Obama has injected this “post-racial” campaign with a massive dose of race. 

The ultimate irony is clear – though Reverend Wright is black, the reason he’d become a liability to Senator Obama isn’t his race, but his blatant hatred for America.  Senator Obama has excused that hate by reason of race and “generation,” and undone in one day a year’s worth of “post-racial” positioning.

That’s a great debating strategy – don’t let your opponents focus on your weaknesses – but when it comes to healing America, or even to running a Presidential campaign, Senator Obama has done himself, and his country, a profound disservice.  Instead of addressing his pastor’s hatred for America – and what that means about the Senator’s own judgment – he instead tried to shame white America into letting go of the issues created by Reverend Wright.  Instead of understanding Senator Obama’s choice of affiliating with such a notorious hater, we now know where he stands on the issue of race – an issue that, until today, Senator Obama himself had said was off-limits and out-of-bounds.

Politically, this may be the ultimate “bait-and-switch.”

 

 

Would you sit still for and break bread with a man who insulted your mother?  Would you support that man – let alone congregate with that man for more than 20 years – if he repeatedly insulted your mother and her people in front of your wife and your children?  Would you expose your children to a man who repeatedly – and in the strongest language – told them that their grandmother was evil, and that her people were the root of all evil?

I wouldn’t.  You wouldn’t.  But apparently, Senator Barack Obama sees things differently.  And that choice – to attend for 20 years the church of a virulent racist, a man who seems to believe in, and preach about, every race-tinged conspiracy theory of the 20^th century – has landed Senator Obama in the communications crisis of his life.

I realize that I’m on shaky ground here.  We learned this week that even a lifetime of leadership in racial healing isn’t enough of a shield for what I have to say.  Former Congresswoman – and the first woman to run as a major party candidate for the Vice Presidency – Geraldine Ferraro found that out this week. According to the “new rules of public discourse,” when it comes to criticizing – or even to commenting on – Senator Barack Obama, even life-long and very public opposition to racism is no defense against vicious charges of racism.  From day-one, Senator Obama has been the ultimate Teflon candidate, with surrogates eager to dash forward and brand as racist anybody who dares to criticize the Senator or even mention his race.

So it is with more than a little trepidation that I venture forth into the danger zone – I know that my efforts to integrate the Methodist Church in Georgia (and to assure that black ministers in Georgia earned a living wage, with benefits) will not shield me from criticism, nor will an award from the Urban League that I won for my (then) South Carolina employer protect me. 

Yet an issue of racism has erupted around Senator Barack Obama, and as of this writing, he’s yet to explain how a man – widely known for being “post-racial,” a candidate widely known for bringing the races together and defusing the entire issue of race in politics – could have stayed in the congregation of a virulent racist for 20 years, let alone contributing more than $22,000 in 2006 alone to that man and his ministry. 

While the Senator has not only distanced himself from Reverend Wright’s words, he’s said that he was never in the room when Reverend Wright spoke the incendiary phrases – “God Damn America” – or accused America of creating HIV AIDS as a tool of genocide  or, on the Sunday after the 9/11 attacks, Reverend Wright’s accusation that America had brought on the attack because of everything from Hiroshima to Palestine to AIDS.  Perhaps he didn’t hear those particular comments.  Perhaps.  However, there is no way that Senator Obama could have been ignorant of Reverend Wright’s beliefs about race and racism in America.  The Senator had to know that Reverend Wright blamed “rich white people” for all the ills of the earth, if only because he’s been dodging and half-answering questions about this since at least last October – two months before Reverend Wright gave virulent racist and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award last December.

Which brings me to a question I’ve not seen asked before today.  In the cultural melting-pot immigrant-filled neighborhood in which I grew up, there was no quicker way to start a fight than to diss somebody’s mother.  That act is a deadly sin that seems to cross all cultural lines, and – as a way of insulting others, it seems to be alive and well in the black community.  That is just one more reason why I am amazed that Barack Obama stayed with his Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years.  That congregation’s pastor, Reverend Wright, seems never to pass up a chance to stick it to whitey … which means that Senator Obama’s own minister was dissing Obama’s mother, and doing so “in front of God and everybody,” including the Senators two impressionable daughters.

Clearly, when starting a political career in inner-city Chicago, it was useful for a young Barack Obama to attend such a church.  If nothing else, having a membership in Reverend Wright’s church served to validated Senator Obama’s credentials as a real black man – in spite of his white mother – in a community where your degree of “blackness” apparently mattered.  However, once he decided to extend his reach beyond Urban Chicago for state-wide and national politics, what had once been a validater had become a liability – a liability that the media’s unwillingness to raise the race card with a man whose career was built on “post-racial” unity – had held in abeyance until now.

Now, Senator Obama has started to fight back, but his comments to date have created more PR problems than they solved.  First, he equated Reverend Wright to the “crazy uncle” that every family has, and tolerates, while not accepting his rants as reality.  Then he said he hadn’t been present when those hate-tinged words (and many more – as the torrent of video clips seems to show) – as if not being present protected him from culpability in financially and personally supporting a man with so many race-filled, hate-filled things to say about whites and America.  Then he said he didn’t support “any of those” statements – without quite saying which statements he was disavowing.  Most recently, he’s said that since Reverend Wright was about to retire, he saw no reason to leave the church – something that might be true today, but something that doesn’t explain the last 20 years.

However, actions speak louder than words.  Senator Obama and his wife chose Reverend Wright’s church after carefully “shopping around,” looking for a “spiritual home” for their family.  Then they stayed in that congregation for 20 years – providing significant financial support (nearly $2,000 per month - $500 per week – in 2006 alone) – and raising their daughters in the bosom of this church’s family.  They sat through 20 years of sermons – some of which even mentioned the Senator himself – while their “crazy uncle” ranted about white American conspiracies from Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki to AIDS and crack cocaine and 9/11/2001.  Not only that, but Senator Obama dedicated his political biography – The Audacity of Hope – to the man whose sermon inspired the title.  Last straw, when he decided to run for President, the Senator appointed his spiritual leader, minister and friend to his campaign’s religion steering committee – a position that, at this writing, Reverend Wright still holds.

Senator Clinton has, almost from day-one, dropped supporters and campaign officials for even hinting at some of Senator Obama’s potential personal vulnerabilities, ranging from youthful drug abuse to his potentially narrow appeal to the black community.  Yet Reverend Wright, who’s made a career of blaming white America – including, apparently, the Senator’s mother and grandparents – for all our social ills, remains a respected campaign official.

Which means that Senator Obama has a lot of explaining to do to America and America’s voters.  He needs to explain – as a candidate who bases his credibility on his sound judgment – why he has shown such remarkable “judgment” about this man.  He needs to explain why the Senator has, over more than 20 years, supported personally and financially, a man who damns America and blames whites for all the world’s ills, and does that in the name of God.  He needs to explain why – as a “post-racial” candidate intent on healing – he chooses to associate himself with a virulent racist intent on re-segregating America.  It will take more than a denial, a denunciation or a repudiation of Reverend Wright right now to explain away 20 years of questionable decisions and politically-dangerous associations.

I’m glad I’m not Senator Obama’s spokesman today – it will take more spinning than an Illinois twister to make this set of decisions and choices and lame excuses go away.  What can explain any man associating with someone who regularly disses his mama?  Would you do that?

 Note:  I've been invited to discuss this blog - about Eliot Spitzer's meltdown - on Fox Business at 6 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, March 12th ...

Conventional wisdom has already identified either New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s career ambitions – or, if the commentator is more of a humanist than a political commentator, Mrs. Spitzer and their three girls – as the real loser in Spitzer’s melt-down.

However, politically at least, they’re wrong.  Politically, the real loser isn’t Eliot, his political career – or his family.  The real loser is … Senator Hillary Clinton.

That loss is not because Governor Spitzer is one of Senator Clinton’s increasingly desperately-needed super-delegates.  And it’s not because someone in the media (if not in Senator Obama’s campaign) will almost certainly call on her to repudiate Governor Spitzer as a supporter, just as she recently demanded that Senator Obama repudiate the endorsement made by “Minister” Louis Farrakhan, but that’s not why she’s the real loser here, either.

The real reason why Senator Hillary Clinton is the real loser is simple: here, in tenth anniversary year of the Monica Lewinsky melt-down, the last thing Senator Clinton needs is for America to be reminded of the facts and details surrounding her husband Bill’s exploitative tryst with intern Monica Lewinsky.  Yet today’s fallen political unfaithful husband, Eliot Spitzer, will do nothing so much as he will remind America of that other unfaithful political husband … Bill Clinton. 

Senator Clinton will be seen by some as a precursor “victim” to today’s spouse-victim, Eliot’s wife – Silda Wall Spitzer.  However, the real memory-jog will be more along the lines of then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s misguided belief in a “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” as the architect of her downfall, rather than a philandering husband who couldn’t keep it zipped.  That one blame-comment, made on the Today Show on January 27, 1998 showed her political blindness in the face of a fact she’d known for decades – that Bill Clinton was a serial philanderer.  She knew about Gennifer Flowers. She knew about Paula Jones.  No matter how much she would have liked to believe otherwise, her attempt to blame the Lewinsky story on political opponents instead of her husband of more than 20 years shows a serious gap in judgment – the kind of judgment she is offering as her justification for being named the Democratic Party’s candidate.

As an aside, I was frankly amazed that Clinton-for-President campaign spokesman Mark Penn made reference to Ken Starr, even in an effort to put down Senator Obama – it brought up what may be the most shameful and painful part of Senator Clinton’s life – and the last thing she needs is for people to start remembering what her tenure in the White House was really like. 

For more than a year now, Senator Clinton has painted herself as “co-President,” using cleverly-crafted PR-driven strategies to credit herself with all the stellar accomplishments of the Bill Clinton Presidency. These range from those that President Clinton really had a hand in, such as NAFTA, Welfare Reform and a Balanced Budget – to those the President and his First Lady had little to do with, such as the peace in Northern Ireland.  Strategically, the last thing Senator Clinton wants, however, is a careful refresher course in the Clinton Presidency – not the one marked by major political accomplishments, but the one marked by scandal: Whitewater, Travelgate, Vince Foster, Casa Grande, Ron Brown, Susan McDougall … and, Monica Lewinsky.

Yet that is exactly what Governor Eliot Spitzer’s now-public assignation with a high-priced prostitute will do. Spitzer’s downfall will remind Americans of that last high-level Democrat who misused his executive position to further his own “unconventional” sexual needs and desires. And, if Spitzer tries to make this out as a “personal problem” – which is what he called it in his initial press conference – the way that President Clinton tried to make Lewinsky and lying before a Grand Jury a “personal problem,” one that was “just about sex,” this will only sharpen the comparison and further damage Senator Clinton’s push to the presidency.

If nothing else, it will cause the press to raise questions that, by their very nature, will diminish ex-President Bill Clinton’s utility as Senator Clinton’s campaigner-in-Chief; instead of lauding his wife’s accomplishments and potential, he’ll be peppered with “ten-years-after” questions about his own scandal, and how that relates to Governor Spitzer’s scandal.

So, at least politically, the big loser from the Eliot Spitzer sex-tryst melt-down is … Senator Hillary Clinton and her presidential aspirations.  She may yet survive this, as she’s survived so many other things in her tumultuous 30-plus year marriage-slash-political career – those who count her out have lost more bets than they’ve won – but clearly the last thing she needed in the run-up to the final, and critical, primaries in Mississippi, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and a dozen or so other states, was a reminder of the problems she faced as First Lady, and what that might portend for her own Presidency.

Remember, you heard it here first!

 

Harry Truman famously said:

 

“I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think its hell.”

 

Republicans can be excused, perhaps, for forgetting this subtle-but-important difference between telling the truth and going negative, but Democrats who cite Truman as their strongest post-war President and something of a cultural icon ought to know better – or remember better. 

 

This failure to discern the difference between “telling the truth” and “going negative” is coming into sharp focus in this campaign, since both Senator Obama and Senator McCain have publicly and repeatedly eschewed “negative” campaigning – an approach which is high-minded, but often impractical.  This is especially a problem right now for Senator Obama, who is up against – in Senator Clinton – a real Chicago street-fighter.  The Clintons have always been reputed to “take no prisoners,” and so far in this campaign is concerned, she has lived up (or lived down) to that reputation, as has her husband and chief surrogate, former President Bill Clinton.

 

It used to be that “truth” was a defense in political campaigns – “negative” campaigning (also called “dirty” campaigning) was limited to spreading lies and unfounded innuendo about your opponents.  This dichotomy changed in 1988, when Vice President George H.W. Bush’s campaign picked up on “an attack” made against former Governor Michael Dukakis by Tennessee Senator (and fellow Presidential Candidate) Al Gore during the primary season.  This “attack,” of course, while mishandled by Senator Gore, led to the Republicans’ perhaps decisively effective “Willie Horton” ads.  Willie Horton was a convicted Massachusetts murder who – after being let out on a “weekend furlough” by then-Governor Dukakis – went on a murder-and-rape rampage in Maryland. 

 

The ad was indisputably true; however, because Horton was black and his victims were white, the politically correct media jumped all over the Bush campaign for “negative attack ads” that “played the race card,” totally ignoring the fact that the charge was first made in a debate by Senator Al Gore.  Facts didn’t matter – this ad “proved” that Republicans were closet racists, and this view – not the facts of Dukakis’s perhaps faulty judgment in furloughing dangerous murderers – became a major media issue.  Bush was damned for his racism, and his campaign advisor, Lee Atwater was particularly tarred as a virulent racist of the first order.

 

As a sidebar (and in the spirit of full disclosure), I knew Lee Atwater and worked with him – while he was South Carolina state Republican Party chairman – on the 1976 Ford campaign.  While he was not afraid to play hardball, I am absolutely certain that he was no racist.  I know false these charges hurt him personally and deeply.

 

However, since “Willie Horton,” truth has no longer been a defense.  An ad or speech or statement that calls an opponent to account is called an “attack ad” or characterized as “going negative” – when in fact, it’s often just reporting the truth.  For instance, comparison ads (we’ve seen many of these in this election cycle) are deemed attack ads, even if they honestly compare two candidates’ relative positions.  Romney was justly famous for his comparison ads, and he was seen as going negative EVEN when the ads were objectively true.  Candidates have been pressured by an underlying “political correctness” movement – primarily based around scrutiny from a media that’s constantly looking for yet one more controversy – and it’s gotten to the point that some candidates recoil from any comparative ads or even comparative statements by their supporters. 

 

For instance, John McCain has spent a great deal of time distancing himself from his own supporters.  Some of this, such as his repudiation of a warm-up-act talk show host who introduced him in Cincinnati by railing against Senator Obama (and daring to use his middle name, which has in this election cycle become “off-limits”), may be justified. However, when Senator McCain publicly scolded a supporter who cracked a joke at Hillary Clinton’s expense at a recent pro-McCain town hall meeting (“if the phone rang at 3 a.m. and Cindy McCain answered it, at least she’d know where her husband was”) is probably taking this “kid-gloves” treatment too far.  Senator McCain – the only real warrior in the campaign – is actually coming across as too civilized to fight, which may hurt him as he tries to project himself as the best-qualified candidate to fight a war against terrorists.

 

All the candidates ought to remember what Harry Truman said, and what American politicians used to believe – “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think its hell.”  Truly negative campaigning is beneath the office of the President, and unworthy of real candidates for that office – but telling the truth about opponents and letting the voters make up their mind has always been as American as apple pie.  If it was good enough for “Honest Abe” and “Give ‘em Hell Harry,” it ought to be good enough for today’s Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates.

Remember, you heard it here first!

If he wants to win in November, Senator McCain had better wake up and listen to the message more than a million conservatives sent him on Super Tuesday II.

Earlier this evening, Senator John McCain comfortably locked up the Republican nomination with decisive wins in four state primaries.   Governor Mike Huckabee was remarkably generous, delivering a gracious concession speech - he's been a class act from beginning to end, and a refreshing change from the low-ball game played by some other candidates - and it should be said that Senator McCain has also opted for the "high road" in most of his efforts.

However, even as he is busy accepting his well-earned congratulations from friends, former competitors and ambitious bandwagoners, if he wants to win in November, Senator McCain should see tonight's vote as a conservative cautionary tale - one that he needs to address before the Republican Convention ... one he should address right away.

There was no question before Super Tuesday II that Senator McCain was going to be the Republican nominee.  He was shy a few delegates, but with only the zero-funded Governor Huckabee continuing to offer a challenge, no rational observer expected anything other than Candidate McCain.  Certainly, Governor Huckabee knew this.  More important, Governor Huckabee's supporters knew this, too.

However, with most of the votes counted (as I write this), it's clear that more than one million Republican voters took the time - and, in Ohio and the Northeast, braved the elements - to come out and vote AGAINST McCain.  This wasn't the Rush Limbaugh-inspired cross-over vote for Hillary (to keep the blood-soaked internecine civil war alive in the Democratic Party), but rather a spontaneous, grass-roots uprising against Senator McCain's positions on tax cuts, border security, illegal immigration and a double-handful of other issues in which Senator McCain differs from the Conservative base of the Republican Party.

While McCain has won handily, he initially rose to the top because the Conservative vote was split in several ways, while McCain's resurrection of the "Rockefeller Wing" of the Republican Party went unchallenged for the moderate Republican votes - and in addition, Senator McCain did best, early on (when it really mattered) when Democrats and Independents could vote in the Republican Party - and exit polling showed that many did.  In effect, between those cross-over votes and their own split between four (then three, then two) Conservative candidates, the Republican Party base's own fragmentation allowed Senator McCain to become the Party candidate, without ever earning a majority in those critical early primaries.

In effect, he won by attracting the largest plurality in elections where no candidate attracted a majority - but he did so in elections where all the Conservative candidates, when taken together, DID win a majority of the votes.  Like President Clinton in 1992, he became the "plurality" winner, rather than the "majority" winner.  Still, he won.  That's history.

But in the face of that ultimately decisive victory, Senator McCain saw - tonight - well over a million Republicans come out and vote against him, casting ballots based on principle rather than on any hope that their votes would carry the day.  That remarkable outpouring of Conservative discontent MUST be a warning signal to Senator McCain ... and if he's as smart a candidate as his track record seems to demonstrate, he'd better listen long and hard to that warning signal.

Senator McCain - "the natives are restless" - the base that you MUST have in order to win in November has just given you a bold and committed vote of no-confidence.  That's the bad news.  The good news - you've got eight full months to change your tune and decisively prove to your base that you're worthy of their support, their passionate support - as well as their votes.  You need their money.  You need their volunteer door-to-door commitment.  You need their passion - you need them to believe in you every bit as much as you believe in yourself.

You've got eight months to close that deal - but you'll be struggling to overcome 25 years of aisle-crossing baggage.  You may find that you'll need every minute of those eight months, and if you're smarter than your campaign advisors, you'll start today.

Remember, you heard it here first.














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