wright controversy is obama camp’s mistake

by Jeremy P. Jacobs

Published: April 30, 2008

In his book on politics, “Hardball,” Chris Matthews, whether you love him or hate him, lays out what is generally considered a staple of modern political campaigning: campaigns should “hang a lantern” on their problems and then fight them to Hell’s doorstep. What Matthews means is that a campaign should identify the potential land mines out there and address them head on - with no ifs, ands or buts about it.

The Obama campaign clearly hasn’t read this chapter. If it had, it wouldn’t have been blindsided by the recent controversy surrounding his relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The Obama camp has handled this situation wrong pretty much from day one. First, while Obama acknowledged that he knew Wright’s remarks would likely surface in the campaign, he wasn’t prepared for the backlash they caused. Obama’s speech on race was excellent, but even his campaign acknowledged that Obama wanted to give the speech in response to the media coverage of Wright’s remarks - he hadn’t planned it. Moreover, there was also a division within the Obama campaign about whether he should give the speech at all, and divisions are never good in political campaigns.

After the race speech, Obama stopped addressing Wright’s remarks and his membership in Trinity church, thinking that by leaving it alone the controversy would go away. Clearly, it didn’t. To be fair, Obama likely didn’t know that Wright would be so affronted by Obama’s disassociation that he would plan his own media blitz. Obama also didn’t know Wright would continue to present ridiculous claims about Louis Farrakhan, the U.S.’s involvement in the creation of AIDS and U.S. military action being tantamount to terrorism. Obama also didn’t know Wright would present this ridiculousness in a confrontational and arrogant manner at the National Press Club on Monday.

Even before the speech at the National Press Club, there were signs that the Obama camp was taken off guard. As I noted on the Washington Independent’s blog, Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, very nearly lost his cool on MSNBC because he couldn’t believe the cable networks were devoting so much coverage to Wright. What did he expect? Wright is practically good cable news television personified: he does nothing that would make the viewer any smarter, he’s loud, he’s confrontational, he’s controversial, he’s racial and he’s tied to the front runner for the Democratic nomination! How could any campaign expect cable news wouldn’t cover him?

Obama did what he had to do today when he said Wright’s comments angered him and that “they should be denounced and that is what I’m doing unequivocally today.” But even while he was throwing Wright under the bus, Obama admitted that he never vetted Wright. Sure, Obama meant that when he decided to join Trinity 20 years ago, he didn’t study all of Wright’s previous sermons in case he ran for president some day. That would be freakish. But shouldn’t he have done a better job vetting Wright once he decided to run for president? When some of Wright’s most notorious clips were broadcast on the on the networks, Obama said he didn’t know about them and that he wasn’t in the congregation when Wright said them. Shouldn’t these comments have been something someone in Obama’s opposition research team dug up?

If the Obama camp had aggressively tackled the Wright problem from the beginning, a la Matthews, they may have been able to limit the damage they are now dealing with. Wright is not the wacko that he has been portrayed as in the media. Discussions I have had with leaders of the Jewish community in Chicago have revealed that Wright is not viewed as outside the mainstream in Chicago or anti-Semitic. In fact, many Jews in Chicago told stories of very positive experiences they have had with Wright. These are things the Obama camp could have used. They could have been ready to counter the Wright clips with clips of their own and testimonies that would have educated the public on Wright. They didn’t.

The Wright controversy has led many to speculate whether Democratic superdelegates are questioning Obama’s political judgment. I would argue that the Democrats, after seeing the repeated missteps of the Kerry and Gore campaigns, are more worried about Obama’s ability to run a successful campaign.

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