If you look at the polls, you see that in the last week or so, John McCain has surged; where he was once clearly behind Sen. Obama and trailing Hillary Clinton as well, now he’s showing a narrow lead. Some of this is probably the ugliness that is the Eliot Spitzer story, which certainly hasn’t made the Democrats look good (and which hits Sen. Clinton harder, given her ties to him); more of it, though, is that courtesy of ABC News, America has discovered Sen. Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright Jr. Those who were paying attention knew about him already, but as with any powerful preacher (and he certainly is that), reading is one thing, seeing is something else again. The result has been to raise some serious questions about Sen. Obama and his campaign; given that so much of his appeal has been his image as a post-racial figure who can be an instrument of racial reconciliation and healing, seeing him so closely tied to a mentor who decidedly isn’t has done him serious damage. Mark Steyn, in his usual snarky fashion, has captured the reactions of many quite well.Sen. Obama, of course, is trying to distance himself from the Rev. Dr. Wright—a problematic thing when this man has been his pastor for two decades, officiating at his wedding and baptizing his children—but it may not work. Really, it shouldn’t; whatever specific words Sen. Obama may or may not have heard his pastor say, you can’t associate that closely for that long with someone of such strong character and opinions and not know what that person is made of. Or at least, anyone who could would be grossly unqualified to serve as president of this (or any) country.Unfortunately for Sen. Obama, l’affaire Wright hits harder because of the Rezko trial. Antoin “Tony” Rezko is of course a very different person from the Rev. Dr. Wright and has played a very different part in Sen. Obama’s life, but his trial has already weakened the Senator and put some cracks in his image. In particular, when Sen. Obama has been arguing that people should vote for him because “in a dangerous world, it’s judgment that matters,” it really hurts him to have to turn around and say, as he did regarding Mr. Rezko, that “his private real estate transactions with Rezko involved repeated lapses of judgment” (emphasis mine); when he’s been running, essentially, on his character, the appearance of character flaws is particularly damaging. It raises the question: if, as Paul Mirengoff argues, Sen. Obama is “the quintessential self-made man,” who is he, really, at his core? The kind of people with whom he associates closely suggests that we might not like the answer; and that suggestion, if it takes root in enough people’s minds, may prove to be the one thing his campaign cannot survive.See also:
Race and the Democrats, Part III
Race and the Democrats, Part IV
The Audacity of Hate, Part One, Two, Three, Four
The Audacity of Hype
