The speech notwithstanding, the ground seems to have turned against Barack Obama in Pennsylvania:
PHILADELPHIA — Stephanie Gill, a bartender in a white working-class neighborhood, noticed the shift immediately.
A week ago, her customers at Rauchut’s Tavern in Tacony didn’t have much to say about Barack Obama. But when she returned to work Wednesday, a day after the Illinois senator attempted to quell the furor over his pastor’s racially incendiary remarks, the reaction inside the corner bar was raw and unapologetic.
“People are not happy with Obama,” Gill said. “It’s the race stuff.”
Obama has always been a tough sell in largely white Northeast Philadelphia and in the city’s blue-collar river wards, a collection of white ethnic enclaves where customers at the local watering hole are often born and raised in the neighborhood that supports it.
And his speech Tuesday, although widely praised by the pundit caste and Obama supporters, has only seemed to widen the gulf with the Budweiser class here.
More than a dozen interviews Wednesday found voters unmoved by Obama’s plea to move beyond racial divisions of the past. Despite baring himself with extraordinarily personal reflections on one of the most toxic issues of the day, a highly unusual move for a politician running for national office, the debate inside taverns and beauty shops here had barely moved beyond outrage aimed at the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Obama’s refusal to “disown” his longtime pastor.
And that opinion isn’t limited to the patrons of a bar:
Michael Smerconish, the morning drive-time host on 1210 AM WPHT, a radio station with a conservative lineup, watched the speech in person Tuesday at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. He appeared that night on MSNBC’s “Hardball” and called the speech “stunning.”
The comments from his listeners Wednesday morning were far different.
“It was a great speech,” one man said. “But what concerns me is that on the website for his church, they say they are unabashedly Afro-centric. … The underlying message is they are perpetual victims and they enjoy the victim status and by proxy, me as a white person is their victimizer. And as long as we perpetuate these divisions, we will never heal.”
Smerconish, in an interview later in the day, said voters needed to spend time absorbing the speech — “the most unmuzzled speech about race in my adult lifetime.”
“So here the problem is, Jeremiah Wright is conducive to a 10-second sound bite and the speech is not,” he said. “This is the problem. The Wright thing is perfect for our short attention spans, and this requires a little bit of attention. It takes some sitting down and settling in and not a lot of folks are willing to do that.”
Smerconish has a point, and Obama probably wasn’t going to win Pennsylvania anyway, but the Wright controversy would seem to guarantee it. And, based upon the most recently released poll, it could be a blowout:
Sen. Hillary Clinton has extended her lead over Sen. Barack Obama among registered Democrats likely to vote in the Pennsylvania primary on April 22, a poll released today shows.
Clinton of New York leads Obama of Illinois by 16 percentage points — 51 percent to 35 percent — according to the Franklin & Marshall Poll conducted for the Tribune-Review, WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh and other news outlets. Nearly one in seven likely Democratic voters — 13 percent — are undecided.
“This poll demonstrates how strongly positioned Clinton is in Pennsylvania,” said G. Terry Madonna, a Franklin & Marshall political science professor who directed the poll.
(…)
The poll shows the percentage of Democratic voters who view Obama favorably plunged by 10 points to 47 percent since a Franklin & Marshall Poll last month. His unfavorable rating jumped from 16 percent to 25 percent.
Clinton is viewed favorably by 65 percent of those polled and unfavorably by 18 percent. Those ratings are similar to polls taken over the past year.
A big Clinton win in Pennsylvania could represent a significant momentum shift.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Have you forgotten how blacks vote? Are you too young to remember O. J. Simpson. Murder is OK if you are a victim of Whitey.
Go to my website: MyManJohn.com See a real picture of Obama.
Don Jones
MyManJohn.com
March 20th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I was afraid our country could not get beyond the whole race thing. Why do people insist on holding on to something that is so dysfunctional, violent, and plain ridiculous? We are Americans,period. We are human, period.
What Wright said was offensive to most people, however, he was in his church with people who apparently believe that he is worth listening to and being able to take what they need and leave the rest. This is still America, home of the free, freedom of speech and all that. You will find racists in every race, however, they don’t all make front page. Does America always make the right choices? I don’t think so, we have made big mistakes that have cost us plenty. Is it a crime to say that? I don’t believe so. Is it a crime to point out that we have a race issue in this country that needs to be fixed? I don’t think so.
The people who are involved with the KKK have friends and family who don’t always hold those same beliefs yet don’t dis-own them either.
I guess what bothers me with the reaction of some to this is, people are nailing Obama to the cross and acting like this is something knowone else is guilty of. If you were to look closely at many people you will find the same guilt. Why do people insist on throwing stones when they live in glass houses? Run a complete check on all politicians and see what you come up with, then go after the ones who want you to believe they are without much the same guilt. I hear people say, ” I would never.” Be careful with the word “never” you may be tested one day.
My heart is heavy because of the news and the fact that Obama may be a politician after all, I so wanted him to be smart enough to know that when you go up against a Clinton you better be completely honest with the people. If there is anything to hide they will bring it out. That is what they pay many people big dollars to do for them, find dirt and expose it. It makes me sick, not because I think you should get away with lying to the people who are trying to make good choices for important elections, but because the Clintons are one of the families with the most to hide and are neck deep in cover-ups. Yet, they continue to get away with it and even come out of it smelling like a rose or at least getting the sympathy of the people. Right now, if someone would expose the Clintons real records from the White House, instead of papers with half of it blacked out, and expose their list of friends and contributors, the Clintons would not be in the running at all. Only because the truth is not out for view is she, not only still running, but gaining strength. Is that really fair?
If Obama is forced to live with transparency then shouldn’t the other candidates as well? McCain also, lets not forget him just because he is a republican and has no one to run against. Those people who are truely interested in make the right choice in this election will continue to get the facts on both sides of each story, to try to get to, not just the truth, but the whole story. It certainly looks like we have our work cut out for us and I pray that there are more of us then there are of the ones who flip when a story hits the press without finding out the whole story.
Again, how about continuing this as the year of big change in politics and start demanding transparency from all of the candidates, not just one.
March 20th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
I grew up in Philadelphia, lived there most of my life, go back for three months every year, and just love it. But having lived in New Orleans, England, and in the Midwest, I am willing to say that it is an extraordinarily race-conscious town, with extradinarily race conscious suburbs, and with all that, it is easily the most progressive locale in Pennsylvania. All of this is to say, Obama never had a chance in this primary even before the Wright business. He was destined to sweep the African American vote and to lose the white ethnic vote in a landslide everywhere in the state. Does Jeremiah Wright furnish a rationale for race-based pro and anti Obama sentiment. You bet. Would some other rationale have been found in his absence? You bet.