Obama talks race, Wright, debates
Posted: Sunday, April 27, 2008 3:08 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/NJ’s Athena JonesIn an interview on Fox News Sunday,
Obama acknowledged he may have some work to do to attract blue-collar voters.
"They are less familiar with me than they are with her," he told Chris Wallace. "So we probably have to work a little bit harder. I’ve got to be more present. I’ve got to be knocking on more doors. I’ve got to be hitting more events. We’ve got to work harder, because although it’s flipped a little bit, we’ve always been the underdog in this race."
Obama expressed confidence that his race would not keep him from being elected in the general election, despite exit polls in Pennsylvania that showed votes divided along racial lines. He also argued he was putting unexpected states in play.
"If you look at the general-election polls, we are doing better against John
McCain than Sen.
Clinton is," he said. "And we are putting states in play like Colorado and Virginia that have not been in play for a very long time. Here in Indiana, we just-- you just saw polling by the Indianapolis Star showing me beating John McCain."
He called his association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright a "legitimate political issue" but argued, as he has in the past, that the use of 30-second sound bites had simplified and caricatured his former pastor and said he felt that had been "done in a fairly deliberate way," calling it "unfortunate."
"I also know that I go to church not to worship the pastor, to worship God,” he added. “And that ministry, the church family that's been built there, does outstanding work, has been I think applauded for its outreach to the poor.”
He also discussed his association with 1960s radical William Ayers and issues like charter schools, merit pay for teachers, tort reform and Iraq. The senator said he would not debate Clinton again before the May 6th contests. The interview was taped Saturday, before news that Clinton had challenged Obama to a 90-minute, moderator-free, Lincoln-Douglas-style debate. After the news, Obama's campaign maintained that there had been plenty of debates and that after May 6, they would consider more.
