Posted by
Andrews on Monday, March 31, 2008 3:30:31 PM
The Democrats are in danger of letting a combination of polls and insular thinking destroy their chance at winning the upcoming election. Admittedly, their chance aren't that great since both Obama and Clinton started self-destructing, but whatever chance they did have is going away.
You can see the evidence whenever the topic of Reverend Wright comes up. The Democrats respond by saying either "the polls show Obama is recovering" or "he dealt with it in the speech".
The problem is that the Democrats are getting complacent. As Democrats think "the speech" settled the Wright issue and as polls of Demorcat primary voters show Obama gaining ground against Hillary, the Democrats think only Republicans are still upset about Reverend Wright. The problem for the Democrats is that they are forgetting there is a third group, the independents, and they are not being covered by the polls.
When the Democrats say the issue of Wright has been resolved, they mean that no Democrats they know are still troubled. Obama has managed to hang on to his base. From what I have seen online and heard form others, the independents, and even some Democrats, are not so satisfied with Obama's evasive speech. The press, the talking heads, all those already infatuated with Obama found it enough, but I have not heard any glowing reviews from anyone not already caught up in the Obama movement.
I am sure some are asking "But so what? You have said yourself that it is a long way from the election, so does this even matter? Won't it all be forgotten?"
And that is precisely where I think the Democrats are going wrong. Yes, this could blow over. If the Democrats aggressively attacked the perception of Obama as a black separatists, they may (possibly) be able to get over this and make Obama slightly more viable for November.
The problem is that they are convinced everything has blown over, Obama has handled it, and nothing more needs to be done.
At the same time, the independents are still wondering what is going on. They heard the clips from Wright, they heard Obama's speech, and now they are waiting for more. The speech did not explain everything, the clips were pretty inflammatory, and the independents are still looking for a full answer. And the longer Obama takes to reply, the more they think there must be something to the charges.
At some point, the lack of an answer will cause the independents to just write off Obama. And that is why I say the Democrats are making a mistake. Once a candidate is written off there is no turning back. You can recover from anything except being completely dismissed. If Obama fails to give a more comprehensive response in the near future, he runs the risk of no longer being seen as a serious possibility.
But as long as the Democrats convince one another that everything has been "settled" they help convince Obama that he does not need to revisit this topic, and, as a result, he looks more and more out of the mainstream to those whose votes will decide this election.