Speech Today
Mar 18th, 2008 at 7:19 am by Susie
[You can watch the speech streamed live here.]
This will have to be one hell of a speech, because I heard some poll numbers this morning and they were pretty bad. For one thing, the Wright story has penetrated the consciousness of 65% of the sample, which is very high, and 57% of those polled said it made them less likely to vote for Obama:
Mr. Obama, in a speech Tuesday in Philadelphia, will repeat his earlier denunciations of the minister’s words, aides said. But they said he would also use the opportunity to open a broader discussion of race, which his campaign has said throughout the contest that it wants to transcend. He will bluntly address racial divisions, one aide said, talking about the way they play out in church, in the campaign, and beyond.
Mr. Obama continued to write the speech on Monday evening, which he believes could be one of the most important of his presidential candidacy, aides said. His wife, Michelle, had not been scheduled to travel with him this week, but hastily made plans to be in Philadelphia.
Mr. Obama said Monday that in his speech, to be given at the National Constitution Center, he would “talk a little bit about how some of these issues are perceived from within the black church community, for example, which I think views this very differently.”
After removing Mr. Wright from a religious advisory committee on his campaign on Friday, Mr. Obama concluded over the weekend that he had not sufficiently explained his association with the pastor. He told several aides he was worried that if voters did not hear directly from him — in the setting of a major speech — doubts and questions about him might grow.
Some associates advised him against giving the speech. “Race is now officially on the table. It’s not going away after this,” a senior aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, recalled one adviser saying.
Yep. In most voters’ minds, he is now officially the Black Candidate. And that’s why throwing racism allegations at the Clinton campaign was such a bad tactic in the first place, because in addition to poisoning Clinton for the general election, it took him off his positive, post-racial message. A large part of his appeal to independents and moderates was the hope that Americans could transcend race, and instead, it’s now front and center.
Good heavens. So, when folks from the Clinton campaign, including the former president of the United States, nakedly attempt to diminish your achievements by dismissing you as the “Black Candidate” - you’re supposed to grin and bear it, or else you’ll be labeled as the “Black Candidate?” I’m willing to believe that this may be true, but the picture that paints of our society is so ugly and depressing that I don’t want to even contemplate it.
And his wife is going to stand beside him?
(Man, I hate people, including myself most days.)
Shockingly enough, JKFriz, most people are racist in some way or another. I’m thinking it will be another hundred years before that is really minimized, because a good deal of the country is in fact segregated - not by law, but by the fact that there are no people of another color living there. We’re getting closer, and that makes me happy, but it doesn’t mean we’re there yet.
Much as I am leaning towards Clinton, I hope Obama pulls this off.
I don’t believe this speech makes him “The Black Candidate.” I think it clearly points out they we are at a crossroads. On the one hand there are those who continue to use race as a wedge to keep people from uniting against the real culprits. In my opinion the Clintons are certainly in this camp, apparently knowing no other way than to keep on wedging away to gain politically and direct attention away from the fact that so many of the damaging economic forces at work today were unleashed during the Clinton administration. Then there are those, on the other hand, who believe the only way to effectively address economic class issues is to persusade citizens from all racial and ethnic backgrounds to recognize that we are all more alike than we are different, and to rally them to act accordingly against the agents of the status quo that are perpetrating the injustices.