Can somebody who spent 20 years under the pastoral care of a man who d&&^! America and believes AIDS was invented by the United States government as a means of genocide against people of color really be elected President of the United States?[1]
10 years ago I would have said no way.
But it looks like Barack Obama is going to win the democratic nomination for President this week.
Given the general state of malaise in the country where almost 8 out of 10 Americans feel we’re on the wrong track (I really want to meet the 2 out of 10 who think we’re on the right track) an Obama victory in the fall can’t be dismissed despite what seem like mortal political wounds to me.[2]
I am sure Senator Obama does not hold the same views as the infamous Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
But why would anyone, especially someone who is supposed to bring about a new age in American politics, remain in a church with a pastor who held such views for so long?
Political convenience?
But then he’s as much a politician as Senators McCain and Clinton and all the hope, change, and new politics stuff goes out the window.
I am not a democrat or republican. I doubt I’m even going to vote in this election (that’s how off track I think we are). But I think Senator Obama is going to have a very tough time winning enough moderates to win the general election. If anyone thinks otherwise they should remember that many primary states Obama lost (California, New York, New Jersey, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio) are more important to democrats in the general election than many of the states he won (Wyoming, South Carolina, Nebraska, Kansas, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia to name a few; basically the “really red” ones) because he has little to no chance of carrying the latter in the fall.
Senator Obama is lucky 76% of the nation is not satisfied with the current state of the union. His best bet is to pick a retired general as his vice president, someone like General Norman Schwarzkopf or General James Jones, and hope people are so fed up with republicans that they’ll vote for someone who used to pray with people preaching anti-American attitudes.
If he does win the first thing he needs to do is throw a party for the republicans: they’ve done such an awful job that people will have voted for the Senator from Illinois just to have someone else in the White House.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Wright_controversy
[2] http://www.pollingreport.com/right.htm
