So was it a home run or not? Was Democratic Senator Barack Obama’s historical racial division speech — delivered due to the continuing political firestorm over his relationship with his controversial family pastor Jeremiah Wright Jr but containing one of the most thoughtful discussions of the racial issue ever uttered by a modern politician — a success or a flop?
Much of it is in the eye of the beholder. (You can watch the whole speech here.)
The reason: although generally acknowledged to be a historical speech in terms of content and importance, in hard-nosed political terms its success will eventually be judged by whether he reached his target audience. So watch the polls…and the primaries.
His target audience would NOT be:
–Conservative talk show hosts. On the radio yesterday Bill O’Reilly told listeners Obama could NOT really be a uniter — because he had dared to boycott the Fox Presidential debates. (Ohhhkayy…..). Meanwhile, on his Fox News evening show, Sean Hannity was again raising the name of Louis Farrakhan and seemingly trying to link Obama with him — as he has done before.
–Republican activists on and off the web who area looking for vulnerabilities — any vulnerabilities — to use against him in the general election if he gets the nomination. It’s like the old Groucho Marx song lyric: “Whatever it is, I’m against it…”
His target audience WOULD BE (and these are just a few):
–Independent voters who are truly swing voters and showed great interest in Obama in the past. The Pastor’s comments have already had a bad impact on Obama, a CBS poll finds:
Sixty-one percent of independent voters say they are unaffected, but 36 percent said it made their view less favorable. Two percent of independents said it made them more favorable view.
Overall, unfavorable views of Obama are up somewhat from February. His favorable ratings remain largely unchanged at 44 percent, but there has been some movement from undecided views to unfavorable views, from 23 percent in February to 30 percent now.
–Superdelegates. Too early to tell. They’ll be watching the remaining primaries and polls to see if Obama self-destructs. They’ll also likely watch to see how he handles himself under intense fire…that is sure to come in coming weeks.
–White working class Americans. The impact here is problematical. Most working class Americans didn’t see the speech live, and it’s unlikely a larger number of them turned to C-SPAN or the web to see it in its entirety. As many analysts noted, the speech was “nuanced” and highly thoughtful. In fact, his passages about the way America politics operates in attack mode echoed what many independent voters have said for years. Most working Americans will get their take on what he said via TV sound bites — which are usually the most dramatic. In a “nuanced” speech, that could prove perilous.
The likely impact? It’s too early to tell — but it’s likely more footage of Wright will be shown and hammered via clips by Obama’s foes, particularly Republican. (Why should Hillary Clinton intervene at all when Obama is now being lambasted by GOPers and press coverage?).
But it’s clear the issue won’t go away, that Republicans were smiling yesterday, Newsday notes:
Barack Obama’s first major speech on race drew praise for its eloquence Tuesday — but Republicans think he handed them a major weapon by refusing to disown family pastor Jeremiah Wright Jr., who is known for racially inflammatory remarks.
“This is far and away the most damaging issue of the campaign for him, and his wonderful speech did nothing to make it go away,” said Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster.
In the middle of a recession an economic slowdown (we’ll use White House terminology here), the war in Iraq and various other problems, it’s clear Republicans see an issue they can hammer home. The election could be about Obama and his pastor and his refusal to totally disown him:
“I think it’s an obligation of any opponent to use this issue, to make Reverend Wright a centerpiece of the campaign,” said Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford).
“His speech was disappointing and shameful,” King added. ” … This goes to the heart of who Barack Obama is. He’s trying to say he represents the 21st-century view on race and here he’s sticking up for this guy.”
Added pollster Ayres: “The problem is the contradiction between the fundamental message of the Obama campaign about bringing America together and Wright’s hate-filled, divisive message.”
So the most likely conclusions could be this:
(1) The speech will go down in history as one of the most nuanced and thoughtful discussions by a politician about race in decades.
(2) Future polls will prove hard evidence of what the impact is on the groups Obama needs to reach.
(3) Conservative talk radio, Fox News, and many weblogs that already vehemently oppose Obama were never in the target audience but can be expected to return to this issue repeatedly (as new clips will inevitably arise).
(4) If this issue starts to hurt Obama, Clinton will use this to argue that it’s too huge a risk to give him the nomination and that for the good of the party Superdelegates should vote for someone else (her).
Obama needed to address several audiences with the speech: undecided white voters in Pennsylvania, whose Rust Belt cousins Obama struggled to win over in Ohio even before the Wright controversy; African Americans aggrieved by the opprobrium being heaped on Wright; and staunch supporters such as Farley who needed reassurance about their candidate.
And the likely impact?
The speech drew praise across the political spectrum, though some on the right questioned Obama’s assertion that his liberal agenda could unite different races. But many who heard the speech wondered whether it would be enough to calm the anger generated by the Wright videos. Gerald Shuster, a political scientist at the University of Pittsburgh, found the speech “stylistically persuasive” but thought Obama should have moved aggressively to distance himself from Wright months ago, when reports of his harsher sermons first surfaced. “The rhetoric is convincing, but it’s just coming too late,” he said.
Martin Medhurst, an expert in rhetoric at Baylor University, was struck by the religious intonations as well as the echoes of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on his Catholicism, particularly the summons to overcome divisions to confront common threats.
Will yesterday’s speech be remembered along with Kennedy’s? “If Obama goes on to win the presidency, it will,” Medhurst said. “If he wins the presidency, this will be seen as a very important speech.”
The question is whether the bulk of voters will be able to find the entire speech or watch significant parts of it and listen to his discussion on race, its role, how it impacts perceptions, how existing politics always works and his call for a newer style. Or, whether the focus will remain on Wright as a hot-button issue — that eventually could sink him.
Here’s a prediction:
Parts of the speech may be read to students in future generations.
And parts of the speech will be read and used by Republican operatives.
Looking at it in purely political terms, is the Obama campaign ready for what is most assuredly going to come?
HERE’S A CROSS-SECTION OF VIEWPOINTS FROM MANY DIFFERENT WEBLOGS ON THIS HISTORICAL SPEECH
I do want to say that this searing, nuanced, gut-wrenching, loyal, and deeply, deeply Christian speech is the most honest speech on race in America in my adult lifetime. It is a speech we have all been waiting for for a generation. Its ability to embrace both the legitimate fears and resentments of whites and the understandable anger and dashed hopes of many blacks was, in my view, unique in recent American history…
I have never felt more convinced that this man’s candidacy – not this man, his candidacy – and what he can bring us to achieve – is an historic opportunity. This was a testing; and he did not merely pass it by uttering safe bromides. He addressed the intimate, painful love he has for an imperfect and sometimes embittered man. And how that love enables him to see that man’s faults and pain as well as his promise..
—Dick Polman as usual has a post that MUST be read IN FULL. Here are two paragraphs:
Was Obama effective? That will depend on how it is received, particularly by the millions of white voters who, in the midst of forming their first impressions of Obama, may have been spooked by Wright’s most incendiary remarks. Indeed, Obama’s immediate audience was probably the white working-class, culturally conservative voters who may prove pivotal in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary; a lot of those folks undoubtedly were not charmed to learn that Obama’s favorite pastor, for two decades, was a guy who intoned “God damn America” from the pulpit.
….One hardy piece of political advice is: Cut your losses, and turn things to your advantage. Obama today tried just that, to knock down a bad story and challenge the electorate in a manner consistent with his core campaign theme. I won’t hazard a guess on whether he succeeded; the risk is that too many skeptics will cherry-pick the passages that tick them off, and ignore the rest. But Obama’s future as a potentially transformative politician may hinge on the outcome.
—Taylor Owen of Oxblog (a favorite blog of TMV):
He speaks about issues, controversial issues, with a political voice that hasn’t been heard before. He transcends old ideological, ethnic, religious and historical divides. This voice is not just new to the US, but internationally. This is why so many people in Canada and Europe, for example, are watching him in a way they don’t even look at their own leaders. I can’t express the number of times I have been asked in Canada who will be “our Obama”. Same in the UK.
It is also worth mentioning that the voice evident in the speech clearly shows the unique positionally that he is able to hold. Ferraro was right – Obama could not have given this speech if he were white. Nor could he if he were a boomer – white, black, or female. Neither of the Clinton’s could have given this speech. This, however, does not in any way diminish the force of him giving it.
—National Review’s The Corner:
I stopped listening when the senator started talking about immigrant Americans and it was clear that he was going to extend the roster of victims to include everybody. There is no excuse for Wright and his ugly sermons. Obama could have said he loved the man, but he’s wrong in his hatred of America. But that is not what Obama said. There is no excuse for Wright’s brand of hatred.
–But on The Corner (the same as at TMV) not everyone thinks the same way. Charles Murray at The Corner said this:
I’ve just finished. Has any other major American politician ever made a speech on race that comes even close to this one? As far as I’m concerned, it is just plain flat out brilliant—rhetorically, but also in capturing a lot of nuance about race in America. It is so far above the standard we’re used to from our pols…. But you know me. Starry-eyed Obama groupie.
Am I going to vote for him? No. But I came away from the speech with a profound respect for the man who gave it—something no Hillary Clinton speech has ever done.
How it plays will determine how it plays. If the media focuses more on the Wright defense-by-renouncements and then juxtaposes them with clips of Wright’s comments, then I think the trouble remains. The seeds of doubt about who this guy really is may be nourished. I know that Obama believes that a discussion about race plays to his benefit, no matter what people think about white working class voters and their latent feelings. Perhaps this is the beginning of his opportunity to lift the veil and get everyone — not just himself and the media — to talk openly.
Problem is… so far, this is a one way conversation. It’s … well, the tiny media scrum debating Rev. Wright… and Obama preaching to the country. There’s no give. There’s go back and forth. A one way conversation is a lecture.
CW tells us that white voters tend to become nervous when Democrats and liberals lecture to them — even when they lecture eloquently and respectfully — about race. Will they, this time? What do you think?
Put Obama’s speech up against the other make-or-break speech we’ve seen this cycle on a controversial topic: Mitt Romney’s address on his Mormon faith. In that earlier speech, Romney said little personal, little that could offend — but also little that truly connected with voters. I do not doubt that Romney spoke from his heart. But in his couched terms, he was unable to reach the hearts of then American people.
Here, Obama took a leap of faith on a speech he personally penned. He put his heart on the line. And at least to me, a coastal American who grew up and lived for most of his life in a state (Oregon) that will be holding its nominating contest this May, he did connect. He hit the home run that Todd and Murray talked about.
I fully concede that this is not necessarily the way that the speech will be received all over the country. Race is viewed very differently in different quarters and corners of the country. Even the mention of race and the intense focus on the subject will, to some, turn them off to Obama. In short, this speech very much could have (and indeed still could) backfire.
My guess is, if this thing hadn’t blown up, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright would have had a prominent place in the inauguration, as he has had in the other significant events of Obama’s adult life, and that he’d be a frequent guest in the White House. Which, given that he is not in fact a crazy old uncle, some embarrassing relative you can’t do much about, but Obama’s chosen pastor, makes me wonder how far Obama really stands from any of those views, no matter how much repudiating he does. But then again, I suspect a lot of Obama supporters, white and black, even if they wouldn’t admit to it, don’t have much deep disagreement with a lot of those views about how racist terrorism-supporting America got what it deserved.
In his speech in Philadelphia this morning, Barack Obama revealed that he is most definitely his own man.
Those who have found Obama’s statements of dissociation from his pastor Jeremiah Wright’s statements a tad studious must now be satisfied. This time, Obama did not rest with incendiary and divisive–words which harbor potential toleration (i.e. maybe a little divisiveness is healthy?).
He pegged Wright’s recreational alienation as wrong, as stereotyping, as a “profound mistake,” as founded upon a canard that America has made no progress on race.
It must be understood what a maverick statement this is from a 40-something black politician. In the black community one does not sass one’s elders. One is expected to show a particular deference, understandably, to the generation who fought on the barricades of the Civil Rights movement. That is, to people of Jeremiah Wright’s vintage.
—Michelle Malkin has extensive “live blogging” and concludes:
Obama’s bottom line: Everyone’s a victim. You’re part of the problem if you keep talking about Jeremiah Wright. Everyone’s churches have crazy demagogues. Schools need more money. Leave illegal aliens alone. Never mind all the black grievance-mongers who have built careers sowing seeds of divisions. Look at all the talk show hosts and conservative commentators! Elect Obama. Fixer of souls.
Obama’s speech was possibly the greatest speech on race and class in modern politics, highlighting the inextricable link between the two in America where each has shaped the other in our history….What Obama has done is respected the anger and even the bigotry of many whites, but demanded that they respect the anger of blacks suffering discrimination, and asked that everyone overcome that anger and refuse the red herrings of the race card to concentrate on those who financially benefit every election from the “political stalemate” that has blocked investments in jobs, health care for all, and the revitalization of our communities.
This is the aggressive speech that I’ve wanted from Obama from early on, that clearly identifies the corporate source of the political stalemate that he talks about often, yet whose source he was often vague about. Put on the defensive by the attacks on Reverend Wright, whose own sermons were steeped in these issues of economic and social justice, Obama didn’t just play defense but aggressively redirected the discussion against those making the attack. In an imperfect country of racial division, the corporate political class will always find offensive comments and issues to stoke racial fears, Obama argued, so the issue of Rev. Wright is almost irrelevant.
—The Guardian’s Michael Tomsky:
I have to assume that many white Americans have been attracted to him in no small part because he seemed to offer a narrative that wouldn’t take us into these discomfiting, cobwebbed corners of the American psyche. He seemed, as someone’s one-liner had it, “just the right amount of black”; like he probably belonged to a genteel inter-racial Episcopal church.
Well, tough – he didn’t. And here he basically told us why. He did so with about as much honesty as we have any right to expect from a person seeking the presidency. I’m sure it helps us, as a society, to hear it all put out there with intelligence and subtlety. I’m less sure about whether it will help him.
In a way, Obama’s candidacy, and this speech in particular, will test our collective maturity level. Obama took the stage and essentially said: “It’s time to sit down and have an adult conversation about race in America.”
Are we ready for that conversation? Are we ready to even have adult conversations about politics? That would require a media that focuses on issues rather than sensationalized personal attacks and the day-to-day horse race. Considering some of the headlines immediately following the speech that narrowly focused on Obama’s line that the constitution was stained by slavery, I’m not sure we’re there yet.
Barack Obama got up and did something that we Americans have not had the privilege of seeing since the likes of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. He spoke publicly in a risky and bold, blunt and informed way to a theme that is hardly dead, and in fact regretfully and shamefully so, still permeates many of the social systems and institutions of this our great free country
Obama tried to play both ends against the middle while at the same time trying to show he was “above the fray” all while making a political campaign speech. This was classic Clinton triangulation.
Obama — with his writers — seems to have climbed some high mountain and looked out on the land and seen the broiling angers not as immediate heat, but as irrational expressions in real thwarted lives. Even in people who would hate him for who he is. The ability to see that is rare enough in a politician. I understand why hearing some politician actually up and say it is an experience to some people like finding a fountain in the desert.
It solidifies my belief this election is only partly about choosing the next president. It also is a national revival. These happen maybe once in a generation. In the 19th century, when so many were excluded from direct participation in politics, they were religious revivals or outpourings for social improvement. Now, they are political campaigns.
…I still don’t think I’m going to vote for him. I don’t think I want another Jack Kennedy experience. But I’d be wary of working too hard against him. Not because of the backlash. Because, right or wrong for the job, this candidacy refreshes the tree of liberty.
Is his pitiful attempt at excusing his pastors hate speech, Obama tries to tell the “people” they should move past judging him on his associations….After hearing the bad reverend’s sermons over and over again on the news, it made me realize that he sounds like an imam in a middle eastern mosque, or Dearborn-istan, Michigan.
All my adult life, I’ve seen politicians talking about addressing problems in our country, but never do they talk about taking on the root cause of those problems. For me, the difference between Obama and every other serious contender for the presidency during my adult life is pretty simple. Everyone else talks about fixing problems through a broken political system; Obama talks about changing the system. It makes sense really; if you’re job is to be a politician, then you’re employed by the system. This speech moved me to tears
My life began the year that of Robert Francis Kennedy was taken away. Yet I have been moved by his words. Growing up, Bobby Kennedy represented to me the promise and the possibility of America. It is that promise that brought me to its shores and it is that promise that makes me proud to be a citizen.
Four decades later a new generation, my daughter’s generation, will inherit that promise and that possibility. This morning, in a sweeping 30 minute speech, Barack Obama gave me hope that my daughter will grow up in an America that will be a more perfect union – an America full of promise and possibility.
By today’s media-driven political standards, the speech (which he wrote himself) is almost shockingly nuanced. While Obama clearly condemns offensive comments by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, he tries to put them in some historical and social context– while making plain that he thinks America has moved beyond that context and recognizing that white Americans, too, often have their own fears and resentments. For those who have been following the Wright story, Obama’s speech deserves to be seen or read in its entirety; just watching a few soundbites does it an injustice.
Partisanship aside, as much as I loathe his politics, I always liked Obama the man and believed that his devotion to racial reconciliation was sincere. I don’t anymore. He exploited Trinity politically to establish his black “authenticity” and then demagogued Clinton for challenging his image as the post-racial candidate, and now the two have bumped up against each other so suddenly it’s time for a circle-squaring conversation that can really only end in electing him president. Typical politician, just a bit smarter than the rest. Shows you how naive I am that I’m surprised.
But in Obama’s faith in the average American voter lies one of the greatest weaknesses of his campaign. His faith in the ability and willingness of Americans to rise above manipulative political tactics seems drastically to understate both the efficacy of such tactics and the deafening amplification they receive from our establishment press. Even Americans who authentically believe that they want a “new, better politics” may be swayed by the same old Drudgian sewerage because it is powerful and ubiquitous.
Petty, personality-based demonization works, and the belief that it won’t work any longer in the absence of a major war against it may be more a by-product of faith and desire than reality. Obama’s calm reason and rational (though inspiring) discourse are matched against very visceral images and psychologically gripping strategies.
Would it be acceptable for a white conservative male to adopt the stance that he could not disown a minister spouting anti-American, racialist rhetoric (coming, of course, from a white point of view) without disowning the “white community”? Of course not, and rightly so. Dissociating oneself from one minister, white or black, need not (and should not!) be equated with dissociating oneself from that minister’s (or one’s own) race.
Cartoon by RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.