March
20 Will Obama Survive Wright?

Updated

Time's Joe Klein suggests that Barack Obama's viability depends on whether the public and the media give in to the sensational:

He writes, "Whether Obama survives now will depend on the most important and overlooked part of his speech—the final section, in which he challenged the public and, especially, the media to stow the sensationalism: "We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day ... and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words," he said. "But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election we'll be talking about some other distraction ... And nothing will change ... Or, at this moment in this election, we can come together and say, 'Not this time.'"

"And that is the existential challenge of 2008: whether we will have a big election or a small one. Will we have a serious conversation about the enormous problems confronting the country—the wars, the economic crisis, the looming environmental cataclysm—or will we allow the same-old carnival of swift boats and sound bites? The answer depends on the candidates, of course, and on the media—where cynicism too often passes for insight. But most of all, it depends on you."

Initial polling and anecdotal evidence from Pennsylvania doesn't look good for Obama, although there are still four weeks to go until the primary there. And the swift-boating, so to speak, already has begun, thanks to talk radio producer Lee Habeeb. (And a McCain aide has been suspended for pushing the video.)

Obama's speech, however, has gotten more than 2 million hits on YouTube (compared to just over 50,000 for the Habeeb vid), perhaps helped by a professional marketing push.

Jon Stewart mocked the notion that 24-hour news networks are even capable of having a serious discussion about race --- starting with a dig at Frank Luntz.

James Fallows praises Mike Huckabee for his reaction to the speech, in which Huckabee said, "Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me."

Fallows writes, "Actual honest and empathetic discussion about race...! We've come to expect that presidential campaigns will be the equivalent of World War I trench slaughter, in which there is a "winner" at the Somme but really everyone loses and it's a matter of who is farthest from being bled dry at the end. But the idea of actual discourse about real issues -- it would be nice to think that it could happen.

"It was a moment like this that first drew John McCain to my attention as a politician, nearly 30 years ago.

"In the bleak years just after the Vietnam war, when the tensions that would later resurface in bitter fights about John Kerry's wartime record -- and Bill Clinton's, George W. Bush's, Dick Cheney's, Dan Quayle's -- were at their rawest and most visceral, McCain played a surprising political role. He was the most inclusive and least embittered of hawks, when dealing with doves who had opposed the war in which he had paid such a price. Later he led efforts toward reconciliation between Vietnam and the United States. And when the Swiftboaters of 2004 began running their slimy ads against John Kerry, McCain was there to deplore the "dishonest and dishonorable" attacks, something roughly equivalent to what Mike Huckabee has just done.

"John McCain probably didn't vote for John Kerry that year; Mike Huckabee is probably not going to vote for Obama this year; I am probably not going to vote for McCain. But stands like theirs, and Obama's, are glimmers of hope."

McCain already has suspended one of his advisers for taking the low road, so how will respond if a 527 launches a Wright/Obama attack in the general?