Democracy Has Prevailed.

March 22, 2008

Reaction to The Speech

From CBS:
Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race this week, in which he discussed his relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his controversial longtime minister, has received largely positive reviews, according to a new CBS News poll.

But the percentage of voters who think Obama would unite the country as president has dropped since late February.

Sixty-nine percent of voters who have heard or read about Obama’s speech say he did a good job addressing the issue of race relations, and 63 percent of voters following the events say they agree with Obama's views on race relations. Seventy-one percent say he did a good job explaining his relationship with Wright.

When registered voters were asked if Obama would unite the country, however, 52 percent said yes - down from 67 percent last month.
The complete poll results.

One last point:
Most voters following the events say they will make no difference in their vote. Seventy percent say the events will make no difference in their vote. Among those who said it would, 14 percent said it makes them more likely to vote for Obama while an equal number said it makes them less likely to support him.

Nearly a quarter of Democrats say the events have made them more likely to back Obama, while a similar number of Republicans say they are now less likely to do so. Three in four independents say the events make no difference, and the remainder are nearly evenly split between those more likely to support him and those less likely to do so.
So after all that, with the exception of the "unite the country" stuff, it looks like little has changed.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nononononono! He's a bigot, haven't you heard? It's all over the radio and the internet. I mean, someone like Rush Limbaugh wouldn't be pushing this train of thought if it weren't true, would he?

- Shawn

Bram Reichbaum said...

The point is, we got over the ethnicity and identity hill, and now we can change the subject. Look out!!

Anonymous said...

The presidential race remains Barack Obama's to lose.

Hillary Clinton is an interesting and determined (and for the media, profitable) longshot, but she is still 10-1 on the board. And even that line probably overstates Sen. Clinton's prospects, because if she gets within legitimate striking distance, her record provides plenty of so-far-untapped ammunition for her enemies (or Sen. Obama's supporters) to toss at her.

I hope Sen. Clinton can salvage her standing enough to become an outstanding leader in the Senate, at a time when such leadership would be unusually important. That is probably within her control, and it appears to be roughly a 50-50 proposition. If she closes her campaign with more scorched-earth tactics, however, she may find herself a half-step behind Sen. Lieberman on the road to irrelevance.

Nearly every factor favors the Democratic nominee in the general election. Bush has been discredited nearly entirely, and he is (properly) dragging the Republicans down with him. The Republican-directed economy is in disarray. Iraq is a mismanaged, misguided and monstrously expensive catastrophe. Bin Laden is still issuing statements. The federal deficit built on Bush's watch is obscene. Congressional Republicans -- those remaining, anyway -- are occupied with fallout from their corruption and blundering, and will be too preoccupied with preserving their hides to focus on the presidential campaign. The Bush administration has turned the usual Republican fallback positions -- fiscal responsibility, competence, limited government -- into hypocritical jokes.

Republicans will always have enough money to fund a national campaign, so the funding gap will shrink, but Democrats will have more resources, more enthusiasm, more registered voters. I see a chance that Bush will resist McCain operation's efforts to stick the president in a soundproofed, off-camera box during the campaign -- yet another point that favors the Democratic ticket.

We are still several political light years from November, and we will encounter several surprises, but the probabilities are strongly stacked in Sen. Obama's favor. It's his to lose, and he does not look like a loser.

Anonymous said...

John K. says: Positive reviews from the left who want him elected mean squat. I have reviews from the right that says he missed the mark. So the point would be what he said. And he said "typical white woman" and refuses to part company with Rev Wright even though Wright is not his uncle nor any other type of relative. LMAO But I am voting for Obama. And I have convinced three other people to cross over and do the same. This is just way too much fun to let end in Mid June. LMAO

Anonymous said...

John: you're the typical internet troll.

As for "left wing loons," BOTH Adams and Jefferson would be loons to you. Because Adams was for a centralized federal government and federal spending, and because Jefferson was an atheist who was determined to protect individual liberty.

Anonymous said...

Okay Shawn...You believe Rush Limbaugh. Have you been drinking his kool-aid like Jim Jones. Did you know that Rush does drugs and plays with children? Rush is the bigot.
I am a white woman and I got what Obama was saying, you idiot.

Anonymous said...

I found out that anyone who switched from republican to democrat may not be allowed to switch back prior to November. The republican who have switched in PA may not be able to vote for McCain in November.

Anonymous said...

John K. says: Not only is the bag of health a spin miester, but also pretends to read minds. I love how a liberal will always try to devine what is in a person's mind and then punish them for it. Wait, isn't that what Obama did? Typical white woman. You left wingers do stick together in your racism eh the bag of crap?

Anonymous said...

John K. says: By the way I may shiftmy vote to Sen. Clinton. It appears she may need to prove popular vote to help keep her in the race. But for right now it is Obama. This is fun. Operation Chaos rules!

Anonymous said...

John K. says: Vote for my beautiful peenie! Isn't it pretty? Lookie! Lookie!

EdHeath said...

Any registered voter, regardless of party, may vote for any presidential candidate in November. I think that switching parties just to vote for a candidate you want to see kept in the race is the height of silliness, but it hardly matters. Even if you are stuck being a democrat, you can vote for McCain in the general (like there were "Reagan Democrats").

I'm disappointed there was not more of a reaction to the speech. But I hear the white pundits talking about how the Rev Wright's comments were so far out of the mainstream that Obama's defense of him made Obama questionable. I see the comments here and see that many people took nothing away from the Obama speech that they did not bring with them (ie narrow minded racism). I guess the conservatives have pushed back hard.

Anonymous said...

Senator Obama did a fine job of communicating an interesting point. Its always easy to dissown or walk away from people who do not 100% agree with your views. It is much harder and to me more noble to stand firm and agree to disagree. Senator Obama is a reasonable man who is clearly aware of the comments made by Rev Wright. He didnt get elected and serve nearly 12 years in government by being stupid. I saw he message was one of tolerance and that is what is needed to unite a country. It seems like the Clinton campaign views humanity as a sea of herd animals and they are cowboying the electorate around polarizingcomments being the equivalent of a gunshot to trigger a stampede in one direction to produce an outcome. Couple that with the missinformation and slight of hand comments of Hillary and Bill and you have a disgusting myth - that they are capable of once again running this country. The only reason race is an issue is because the Clintons keep touting it in an effort to trump Obamas lead. Anything they can do to bring him down a peg is fair game. Here in Scranton some folks by into the Clinton brigade sense of entitlement and I just cant stomach it any longer. Obamas speech was a great job and it made me rethink and change my mind about a few things - Clinton is one of them. The only phone she is qualified to answer at three AM is a pizza delivery guy in NY where she belongs!