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Mar
15
The Moderate Voice has several posts up on the topic but this is the one where I left the following comment:
What we’re seeing is Obama’s skills as a uniter in action, though not in the getting a law passed setting.
What do uniters do? They hold issues to be important, not the specific position. That enables them to speak about the issue from a variety of perspectives, and offer up finessed views that help those who do have differing perspectives hear what the speaker needs to say in a way that the listener can hear it.
That requires spin in its most classical sense: trying to re-phrase the same thing in a a way that someone else can understand it.
But the problem with this approach – this uniter tactic – in this candidate realm is that it looks much like the way people are describing it here – and that’s not in a positive light.
This is the double-edged sword for how negotiater’s negotiate. And I would posit that this is an excellent way to get a glimpse of what exactly Obama would “do” in difficult situations.
(Whether you like it, agree with it or have some other reaction about it isn’t what I’m addressing at this point.)
Personally, I thought Barack Obama was done with this topic a long time ago. I get it already. He’s taking a position that many of us take on many issues. Big deal. I’m not sure why people feel the need to keep pressing. I’ve written about this over and over on other issues: people’s need to have people apologize or denounce or endorse (or slam for that matter) in order to show that they feel a certain way that other people want them to show they feel is a waste, because who can trust an apology, denouncement, endorsement or slam that comes from such pressure?
However, to the extent that we can analyze the skill or lack thereof in how an individual handles the pressure, that is valuable. And the more analyses there are on how Clinton and Obama react to pressure, the more accurately we can predict how they might act as CIC.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:04 am March 15th, 2008 in Barack Obama, Campaigning, Elections, Religion, WH2008
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11 Responses to “The take-away from Obama confronting his connection to Pastor Wright”
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Obama must have known that this was going to come back and hunt him. He can’t be that naive, especially since he made Pastor Wright his advisor during the campaign. Whether you want to call it an error in judgement it brings questions towards credibility and his ability to make wise decisions. Worse, for the first time, I saw Obama on TV stilted, stuttering, truly uncomfortable as if the shine had gone out. This looks and smells bad. For me, I lost a lot of respect for Obama.
What we’re seeing is Obama’s skills as a uniter in action, though not in the getting a law passed setting.
I’m not sure I understand your characterization. Who, exactly, is Sen. Obama “uniting” in this case?
Tito – I wouldn’t not say that it smells bad – and I’m not even sure how naive it is. I think he probably really thought that what he’d said would suffice – I think that the naivete, if anywhere, is in an underestimation of just how demanding opposition forces so to speak can be. They will wrench whatever they can out of you, or just make you feel inadequate. This is one of the reasons why I hate the “he must apologize!” kind of thing – it’s just a bullying thing most of the time – though not all the time.
Anyway – I haven’t lost respect for him – I empathize to the extent that we’re all suspect to having mixed feelings, even about the people who are most important in our lives. But as someone who is pursuing the presidency, he has to expect that this kind of questioning is going to arise.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Anon, in this case, Obama must unite voters behind him, but not all voters know what to make of his associations with Pastor Wright, while others outright want Obama to completely repudiate and others still don’t see the need for Obama to even address it, and I would be others still want Obama to say, Feh! Wright is just telling it like it is and Obama should be kissing his feet (or whatever).
So-if Obama wants to win in the long run, he has got to get these factions of voters to accept whatever level of admission or acceptance or rejection he proffers about Pastor Wright, because so long as there are nonbelievers among possible supporters, or to the extent he disaffects uncommitted voters, he’s got a real problem.
That’s what I mean about uniting in this instance.
Re comment #4, thanks for the clarification.
I do see the senator’s need to unite voters behind him. However, in this instance, I don’t think I perceive the senator as acting as a “uniter.” Rather, I see him as someone who’s “splitting the difference” or “trying to have it both ways” (condemning the words, while claiming ignorance of them and/or explaining them as a result of Rev. Wright’s anger).
I don’t think people who feel strongly pro or con about Rev. Wright are really going to be satisfied by the senator’s answers. The success of Sen. Obama’s “uniting” on this issue is going to depend, I expect, on there being significantly more people who don’t care about Rev. Wright than those who do. That may or may not be a good assumption in the long run, depending on the activities of the MSM and 527s.
A systematic approach of splintering his support, he could have said many things but it would be very difficult to satisfy everyone. It is tactical in how to set a unifier against himself, create or define an issue that is not resolvable.
He actually wrote a book and titled it off the words of Rev Wright, not sure if he gave him credit or not though, the Audacity of Hope. Contradictory to say you do not believe in what the man says and use his words to title your book.
I tried not to comment here but I keep coming back to this. First my comments about the issue itself. I’m a 50 ish white woman who feels 98% of Wright’s comments are not incendiary. Then I think of my friends who belong to all sorts of religious institutions; Catholics who go to church every week and don’t believe the eucharist actually changes into the body of Christ every week, but they still go. Evangelicals who embrace homosexuality even though their churches lambast them; they still attend every week. I have no issue with Obama attending that Church. Having said that, perception becomes reality, no matter how we got here. I believe my response to JZ’s actual questions fall pretty close to hers, in that getting to the crux of the issue and helping people see the reality of what is being said is important, and then action is needed. In this case, Obama has taken action and now it’s time to get back to the real issues. I agree Jill, let’s hope the press stop pressing.
Anon in #5, do you still feel this way about what he needs to do re: Rev Wright? This post was before his speech on race.
I still think that the impact of the speech, real or intended, has to do with getting people to see that we all have this issue in our lives, one way or another – and that it should not lead to judging or misjudging.
Oengus – but I don’t think Obama is saying that he doesn’t believe what Wright says – he just doesn’t believe everything the man says. I don’t know why that’s so hard to accept.
So Carole, this post was written before Obama gave his speech on race. Do you think he only fed the flames or what? I don’t think it was a mistake to give that speech – but I’m not sure that in this election cycle, it’s going to help (or hurt, for that matter).
I think the results will be a wash; while many may decide to vote for him because of the speech there probably will be just as many undecideds who feel too much discomfort about race and won’t vote for him. It was such a fabulous speech that I don’t see it causing a huge downward spiral. But, Pennsylvania will probably come out the way Ohio did, and that was the case before Wright or this speech. What do you think?