Filling In The Blanks
by Steve Soto
It was just last week that I blasted the media for giving John McCain a free pass for seeking and accepting the support of preachers spewing their own hostility towards segments of this country. Thankfully, Carla Marinucci of the San Francisco Chronicle penned a piece today that pointed out McCain’s own preacher problem, so it would be warranted to let her know we appreciate her evenhandedness.
But buried in this story and a Rasmussen report are indications that Obama has been wounded by this issue, and that the GOP is doing what we expected. More to the point, one GOP strategist and commentator confirms what many Clinton supporters have been saying since Day One: the public’s familiarity with her renders new GOP attacks on old issues somewhat worthless, while Obama’s freshness and the voters’ relative unfamiliarity with him can be used by the GOP against him.
Many GOP officials had believed that Clinton's high negatives in polls and her position as a lightning rod for the GOP grassroots had made her a weaker candidate than Obama.
No longer, says GOP strategist Dan Schnur, who was the spokesman for McCain's 2000 presidential campaign.
"Even if the Jeremiah Wright controversy went away tomorrow, it underscores one of Obama's biggest vulnerabilities," Schnur said of the brouhaha. "There's nothing left for Republicans to say about Hillary Clinton that voters don't already know."
But last week's firestorm over the Chicago minister and his harsh words regarding race have shown that "there are big empty spaces in Obama's biography - and a lot more for voters to learn about him," said Schnur, who wrote a recent essay published in the New York Times warning Republicans not to underestimate Clinton's strengths. "This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last," that they're surprised by what they hear, he said.
Many will say that the GOP is whistling past the graveyard with Obama, and only trying to push up his negatives. But as Adam Nagourney noted today in the NYT, Hillary has an opening. At this point with Florida and Michigan off the table, she cannot overtake Obama among pledged delegates. But if Obama’s negatives continue to climb in the aftermath of the Wright revelations, and if he fails to do well with working class voters in the remaining contests, Hillary will attempt to play Obama to a draw with the super delegates. She’ll argue that Obama cannot carry working class voters in critical states like Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, nor women and Hispanic voting blocs in the fall. Obama can argue just as easily that the desires of African American Democrats and new voters cannot be tossed aside either.