Obama: Electability concerns?
Posted: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 9:12 AM by Domenico Montanaro
The New York Times, keeping the “bitter” story alive, delves into some electability concerns about Obama. "Indeed, advisers to Mr. Obama concede, his job has been made that much more complicated by his remarks about bitterness among small-town voters. Though it remains unclear what effect the episode will have in the long run, it has suddenly prompted a series of questions -- and worry -- from Democrats about whether Mr. Obama could weather a Republican onslaught in the fall, should he win the presidential nomination.”
“In Pennsylvania, as well as coming primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, did Mr. Obama provide another excuse for white voters to voice qualms about his candidacy without acknowledging that it is his race that troubles them? If he defeats Mrs. Clinton, will accusations of elitism dog him as they have previous Democratic nominees? Does Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, suddenly have an issue that will resonate for the next six months?"
Morning Joe featured Obama communications director Robert Gibbs and Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson discussing this issue, and several others this morning.
USA Today fact-checks Obama's claims about lobbyists and finds some inconsistencies. "Obama often boasts he is "the only candidate who isn't taking a dime from Washington lobbyists," yet his fundraising team includes 38 members of law firms that were paid $138 million last year to lobby the federal government, records show. Those lawyers, including 10 former federal lobbyists, have pledged to raise at least $3.5 million for the Illinois senator's presidential race. Employees of their firms have given Obama's campaign $2.26 million, a USA TODAY analysis of campaign finance data shows.”
More: “Thirty-one of the 38 are law firm partners, who typically receive a share of their firm's lobbying fees. At least six of them have some managerial authority over lobbyists… Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said that while Obama's refusal to take money from lobbyists ‘isn't a perfect solution or symbol, it does reflect Obama's record of trying to change the way that Washington does business.’ He declined to elaborate.”
The Wall Street Journal reports on Obama's attempts to talk about his humble background in order to fight this elitist tag. "On the stump, Sen. Obama has begun reminding audiences that his single mother was on food stamps, that he attended a private high school on a scholarship and that he paid off law-school student loans with his wife, Michelle, just six years ago. ‘I know what it's like to see a mother get sick and worry that maybe she can't pay the bills,’ he said at a building-trade conference in Washington on Tuesday.”
This is easily the toughest column Maureen Dowd has written on Obama in a while. "What turns off voters is the detached egghead quality that they tend to equate with a wimpiness, wordiness and a lack of action -- the same quality that got the professorial and superior Adlai Stevenson mocked by critics as Adelaide. The new attack line for Obama rivals is that he’s gone from J.F.K. to Dukakis. (Just as Dukakis chatted about Belgian endive, Obama chatted about Whole Foods arugula in Iowa.)"
An interview taped a month ago with Obama on the subject of basketball aired on HBO's On Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel Tuesday night, NBC’s Lauren Appelbaum notes. "Growing up in Hawaii without a father, without many African Americans, here is a place where being black was not a disadvantage," Obama told Gumbel after a pick up game in North Carolina. "There was something special about that."
He also compared basketball to jazz as intricately related to African-American culture. But when asked if basketball was defining of his race, Obama said no. "We could have done a whole interview on football," he said. "I love football. I'm just a little skinny to play football."
Michelle Obama was on Colbert. The New York Post writes Colbert asked “whether Obama ever used her husband's campaign themes of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ to get him to do household tasks, as in: ‘I hope that you will change the cat litter.’ ‘What I make sure Barack knows is that 'Yes we can!' Whatever we need to do -- 'Yes we can!'’ quoting another Obama campaign theme, and getting laughs from an audience that appreciated the banter as a racy bedroom reference.” Watch her interview here.
Ahead of his Jewish meeting today, here is what Obama told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial board yesterday on Israel: “‘Let's be clear, there has been a really systematic effort to suggest that I'm not sufficiently pro-Israel,’ he said. ‘The fact that my middle name is Hussein, I'm sure, does not help in that regard ... Again some of this dates back to the '60s between the African-American and the Jewish community as a consequence of [Louis] Farrakhan. There was flap about some of Jesse Jackson's statements during his presidential race, so I inherit all this baggage.’”
“While repeating an earlier statement that he disagreed with former President Jimmy Carter's decision to meet with representatives of the Palestinian group Hamas during his current trip to the Middle East, Mr. Obama said, ‘The fact is, though, that no one's been a more stalwart ally of Israel.... My support of Israel is as strong as Sen. Clinton or [Sen. John] McCain. Groups like AIPAC [the American Israel Political Action Committee] would confirm that.’”
