Tuesday, March 25, 2008

HILLARY CLINTON, BARACK OBAMA

Hillary on Wright: 'He would not have been my pastor.'

There are many challenges in talking about race, but one of them is that each major statement begets further questions, which require further statements, which begets further questions, which continues the cycle for another day. And each time, there's a chance for a statement that comes out wrong, or alienates someone on the fence, or shakes the faith of an established supporter. I'm sure at some point, Obama would really like to talk about Iraq, or mortgages, or gas prices, or anything that doesn't sound like he has to explain Wright as not that bad to white America.
It's like the piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of your shoe when you exit the restroom. The more you try to shake it off, the more it stubbornly sticks to you. The only thing that removes it is when you put pressure on the other end; in this case, Obama is waiting for something, anything to come along and be a bigger story than Wright.

For a while, it looked like the collapse of Hillary's Bosnia snipers story was going to be that bigger story. But I think it will turn out to be a blip.

Today, Hillary Clinton does her part to make sure the Jeremiah Wright story doesn't go away:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a wide-ranging interview today with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters and editors, said she would have left her church if her pastor made the sort of inflammatory remarks Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor made.

“He would not have been my pastor,” Clinton said. “You don’t choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.”…

“You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (who was fired from his radio and television shows after making racially insensitive remarks), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that,” Clinton said. “I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving.”

And with that, it will dominate at least until Thursday, maybe the rest of the week. Storylines over the next 48 hours — Will Pennsylvanians like her answer better than Obama's? How does Obama respond to this? Is this a negative attack? Was Hillary playing the race card?

Here we go again...

03/25 02:34 PM Share