His denunciation of Rev. Wright today seems to be pretty much a bullseye. Why did he let the story hang out there so long without a response? I don’t know, but I do see a pattern here: Throughout the campaign, Obama has made very good tactical moves, but he’s made them slowly. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, has made a lot of mistakes, but she does grasp the 24-hour news cycle and she acts very quickly.
I’m not sure what more Obama could say, to be honest. He’ll be tarred somewhat for having spent 20 years in Wright’s congregation and touting him so heavily as his mentor. But this should stop the bleeding.
The one thing I wonder about is whether Obama showed enough passion. With the caveat that I did not see his initial opening statement, there was a certain coolness to his remarks…
The first big question now is whether Wright comes back at Obama, painfully prolonging the story. If he doesn’t, the press might be willing to let it peter out. So the second big question is how hard John McCain pushes it–and, finally, whether Hillary dares pour some fuel on the fire.
Obama has used the power of his rhetoric to end controversies before, and the campaign hopes now that Obama’s angry soundbites will now replace some of Wright’s more radical utterances on the cable news. The campaign won’t say whether, in their North Carolina tracking polls, they discovered any fall-off among white voters. The bet they’re making is that by extending the active phase of a story for at least one more day, they can prevent its long tail from influencing too many votes next Tuesday.
The Dish 