I want to say right off the bat that I got it wrong in my last diary. I wrote that diary in anticipation of three major public addresses by Rev. Wright: the Bill Moyers interview, the NAACP Keynote and the National Press Club speech.
Where I thought that Wright might use those venues to communicate with a broader public in a way that worked to get past the divisiveness and controversies surrounding some of what we had learned about his preaching in worship service, I completely misjudged what was to come.
Yes, we've learned some valuable context about Rev. Wright and his life and worldview over the last five days, during the Moyers interview in particular; we've also learned that given the chance to educate a broader public and clarify his views on the national stage, Reverend Wright instead went the opposite direction and chose a divisive rhetoric that was roundly destructive and enormously self-centered...
There's nothing I can write here that says it better than what Senator Barack Obama said today.
What I would like to offer in that context is this. I got it wrong. I still don't think that Clinton's attacks (Hamas, Farrakhan, 9/11) on the Trinity United Church of Christ in the Pennsylvania debate were fair. I certainly think they were motivated in good part by Clinton's own politics of destructiveness and divisiveness and exhibited a distinct lack of charity to an African-American Church with a history of commitment to social justice.
However, Clinton's take on Wright, in the wake of his performance at the National Press Club, has proven to be a more accurate assessment than my own. There is no doubt about that. Whether Wright was simply expressing his sincere (and sincerely regrettable) views in public, or whether, in some high stakes political kabuki, Wright chose to be unabashedly and unashamedly controversial as a dramatic end in itself, one thing is clear: the Rev. Wright we saw on Monday has nothing to do with the values and guiding principles of the Obama campaign for President.
That's a shame for all of us.
The rhetoric and politics expressed by Rev. Wright last Monday could not have less to do with my experience as a volunteer for Barack Obama here in Oakland. Since the vast majority of Americans will never get to sit in an Obama for America office, shoulder to shoulder with Americans of all backgrounds and income levels and political points of view, that's a real shame. A million of us have volunteered for Obama and we know that Rev. Wright is not what we are about.
Far from it.
Reverend Wright, for all his fascination as a controversial and scandalous public figure has nothing to do with the volunteers and donors and activists who have made the Obama campaign what is today. Further, Wright's performance last Monday has nothing to do with the values of Barack and Michelle Obama.
Given Senator Obama's statement today, it is clear that Reverend Wright, though free to express himself, can no longer claim goodwill or respect from Senator Obama. That is as it should be. Reverend Wright made his choice. That die is cast.
Given all that, the fact is unchanged, I was wrong about what Wright would choose to do.
What next? Should I crawl under a rock?
I'd rather not. I'll choose to blog.
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I'd like to take this moment to make a few points that have been on my mind since Pennsylvania's primary.
The Democratic Party is and will be a multi-racial and multi-income coalition.
It is in our interest that we emerge from the 2008 primary and caucus season with our party and our coalition running strong. Senators Obama and Clinton are incredibly important leaders in our party and happen to be an African-American man and a white woman. We want to emerge from this nomination process with both Clinton and Obama empowered to maximize their effectiveness on our behalf and with a minimum of rancor between us.
I have said that I would support Senator Clinton if she were the nominee and would work on her behalf. That's still true. The hypothetical path to Clinton's nomination, however, gets narrower and more patently divisive by the day. It is Clinton's right to persevere, however, and even if I'd prefer she'd run a cleaner and fairer and less right-wing campaign, there's little say I, or any of us bloggers, have in that matter.
Given that, there's two things I'd like to say about this.
First, I will never, and would never, attack or discourage Senator Clinton's sincere supporters and activists, be they bloggers or phone bankers or voters at the polls. I may well disagree with them, but I can respect them. My understanding from the exit polls is that the two overriding aspects that drive most of Senator Clinton's support are this.
- a sincere and powerful belief that Senator Clinton would be an effective President
- a sincere and powerful desire to elect a woman President of the United States
Given that, I reject rhetoric that ascribes negative motivations to Clinton's support. I've spoken to plenty of Clinton supporters and those two rationales are the most common responses one hears on her behalf. I respect them even if I prefer Barack Obama.
Second, if, as I predict will happen, Clinton's delegate deficit after North Carolina and Indiana, given the continuing advantage (see the right hand column) Obama has gained in breaking Super Delegates and his margins in the popular vote and pledged delegates with so few contests remaining, makes her path to the nomination truly insurmountable, I will gladly put aside the disagreements I've had with Senator Clinton if she sincerely and forthrightly rallies behind Senator Obama as the nominee.
Further, if Senator Clinton does rally behind Obama, I think it is incumbent upon those of us who support Obama to understand the importance of not simply rallying behind Clinton as she moves to support Barack, but being open to understand the significant core consequences of the widespread support Clinton has won this primary season. Clinton deserves respect for that support whatever our judgments of her conduct in this campaign. In my view:
- we want Hillary Clinton to be effective whatever role she plays
- we have to acknowledge, if Clinton is not the nominee, the legitimate and sincere desire of millions of her supporters to elect a woman president and to see Hillary Clinton play a leading and ongoing role in our party
These are not trivial issues.
This has been a bruising primary campaign in some respects. We emerged with a black man and white woman as our leading candidates and that is cause for celebration. It has also proven a challenge as demographics have seemed to play a strong role in the patterns of the votes. We have navigated these new waters the best we could. This is new territory not simply for the Democratic Party but for the nation as a whole. The media, instead of celebrating these two presidential pioneers, has largely pitted them against one another. That's a shame.
What I find cause to celebrate, however, is that with each primary in this record-setting race for the nomination, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton set new records not simply as a black man or a white woman but as Democratic candidates, period. While Obama has been the driving force in the 2008 primary season registering new votes and driving the message of change, they both are drawing new and committed voters to the polls.
We all can draw strength from that. More voters are registering. More Republicans and independents are crossing over. More Democrats are throwing their hat into the ring in down ticket races. More young people are registering to vote and learning how to phone bank and canvass.
All of that makes us a stronger, not a weaker, party.
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The irony of the Wright affair is that it has shown, once again, that Barack Obama has the qualities we look for in a president: poise under pressure, wisdom when called upon to act, and a willingness to take decisive action and ability to rally us to our better angels when events call upon him to do so.
There is hardly a Democratic president, be it Bill Clinton, Lyndon Baines Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman, or FDR, who did not arrive at the presidency despite some formative challenge from their past. The point is not that our candidates have a blemish-free and scandal-free journey to the nomination; the point is what kind of leadership they show as they unify our party to move forward together.
I can testify that the Obama campaign for President has nothing to do with the divisive display of Reverend Wright last Monday. I can also guess that Hillary Clinton, in private and unguarded moments, understands the stakes of her decisions and failures during this election campaign. This was a campaign which she was the overwhelming favorite to win at the outset, and yet her own divisive tactics and rhetoric have defined her campaign.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are still competing for the nomination of our party. The outcome is not yet secured for either side.
I am very confident that next Tuesday when the 187 delelgates from Indiana and North Carolina are tallied together (meaning almost 50% of the total remaining delegates will have been awarded) that we will have moved that much closer to knowing the outcome of this process with a degree of certainty that has eluded us up to this point.
Our job, all of us, when that moment arrives, be it next Tuesday or in June, will be to do the right thing.
We won't be perfect about it. No one is.
But we can damn well try to live up to our ideals and work together.
At the end of the day, that's what makes us Democrats.
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TAKE ACTION