Needless to say, Obama lost this round. I think he learns now, to win a fight you only need a beautiful punch, or even a bit of luck; but to win a war you need to cast an iron discipline to your army.
No one can hold the cleverness or luck for too long in the end in top politics you should never expects other teams are inferior to yours by any means - what you need is to make as few mistakes as possible. The old vet McCain surely knows that, doesn't he? :)
Obama got too big a family and his around is actually a bit of shame more than proudness. From now on, his team should take a tight grip on what everybody can say and can't say - if somebody not sure about whether he should speak out, then just shut up and smile around - there are too many sharks cricling around his not so decent family members and friends. :)
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Polls show Barack Obama damaged by link to Reverend Jeremiah Wright
Barack Obama with Jeremiah Wright, whose comments appear to have damaged the Illinois senator
Tim Reid, of The Times, Washington
Comment Central: the Wright danger
New polls released today suggest that Barack Obama has been damaged significantly by the controversy over his pastor's inflammatory remarks and that the the issue has become a serious threat to his presidential ambitions.
A new national Gallup tracking poll indicates Hillary Clinton regaining her lead over Mr Obama for the first time in a month, now leading him 49 per cent to 42, a 13 point shift to the former First Lady in less than a fortnight.
Mrs Clinton now also holds a 16-point lead over Mr Obama in Pennsylvania, their next contest on April 22, according to a poll for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. In addition, Mr Obama has lost his once commanding lead among independent voters to John McCain, the Republican nominee, in a new CBS poll.
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Comment Central: the Wright danger
Mrs Clinton leads Mr Obama in the Keystone State by 51 per cent to 35. Mr McCain is backed by 46 per cent of independents, to 38 per cent for Mr Obama. The Gallup and Pennsylvania polls were taken at the height of the controversy, but before Mr Obama made a major speech on the issue on Tuesday.
Despite widespread praise for Mr Obama's speech, in which he used the controversy to challenge America to move beyond its current racial tensions, aides to Mrs Clinton now believe that the incendiary comments of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright offer her perhaps her best chance of winning the Democratic nomination.
At the same time, Republican strategists believe that the incendiary and videotaped sermons, in which Mr Wright declares "God damn America", blames US foreign policy for the September 11 attacks, attacks Israel and levels racist insults against the Clintons, offers them a powerful way to destroy Mr Obama if he becomes the Democratic nominee.
Mrs Clinton's chances of winning the nomination narrowed significantly this week after it became almost certain that her efforts to force re-votes in the disputed primary states of Florida and Michigan had failed.
With only ten contests left, Mr Obama has a virtually impregnable lead among elected delegates, but because the race has been so tight, neither candidate is likely to reach the 2,024 needed to clinch the nomination.
This means that the most important audience for both candidates now is the Democratic Party's 800 superdelegates, the congressmen, senators, former presidents, governors and officials who are free to back either candidate and who will very likely determine the nomination.
Mr Obama is arguing that the superdelegates should not buck "the will of the people" ¡ª that is, they should back the candidate who emerges with the most elected delegates ¡ª a powerful argument that many senior Democrats, including the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, now favour.
Central to Mrs Clinton's strategy is to persuade enough superdelegates that she is the more electable general election candidate.
Her tactics were to try to overtake Mr Obama's popular vote lead, and to argue that she has won many more big, demographically diverse battleground states than Mr Obama, victories achieved with her greater support among white, blue-collar voters, who will be a critical voting bloc in the contest against Mr McCain.
That strategy has been dealt a significant blow with the failure to force re-votes in Florida and Michigan, contests she hoped to win. Both held primaries in January, but the results were nullified and the states stripped of their delegates as punishment for moving their elections up the nominating calendar in breach of party rules.
Mrs Clinton's greatest chance of wooing superdelegates is to shake their faith in Mr Obama's electability, and Mr Wright has provided her with her best chance to do that. Combined with the hope of big wins in forthcoming contests in states such as Pennsylvania and Indiana, her aides will argue that Mr Obama also has real problems among working-class whites.
A new anonymous video appeared on YouTube today, entitled "Is Obama Wright?", that splices together the pastor's most incendiary comments, footage of Mr Obama not putting his hand on his heart during the national anthem, images of Malcolm X, and Mr Obama's denials last week that he had ever witnessed one of Mr Wright's controversial sermons.
Last night a staff member of Mr McCain's campaign was suspended for circulating the video by email. A spokeswoman for Mr McCain said: ¡°We have been very clear on the type of campaign we intend to run and this staffer acted in violation of our policy.¡±
In his speech on Tuesday, Mr Obama appeared to reverse himself, saying: ¡°Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.¡±
Republican strategists, many of whom believed Mrs Clinton would be easier to beat in November than Mr Obama, are now reconsidering that.
Mr Wright's comments are so appalling, they believe, that they are a political gift that will keep on giving if the Illinois senator becomes the nominee ¡ª a fact Mrs Clinton's aides are privately impressing upon superdelegates.
- posted on 03/20/2008
The setback is not his first time. It won't be his last time. Being in the spotlight, he will have many more rounds of hard punches ahead.
Whether he chose to speak out or not on the sensitive issues, what really interests me is that he didn't behave much differently from other politicians: ride on walls, deny involvement, or simply "I didn't know" if necessary .....
Just another show to entertain the voters.
Áîºú³å wrote:
Needless to say, Obama lost this round. I think he learns now, to win a fight you only need a beautiful punch, or even a bit of luck; but to win a war you need to cast an iron discipline to your army.
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