Given the meltdown in the economy, and the looming presidential debates, treat this as a mental health break, my piece on the primary wars has just been published in Prospect Magazine .
I first joined MYDD in 2004, and was an avid geeky follower of Chris Bowers (in fact I thought he ran the site) but as most of you know the site got a very different reputation during the primary war.
Though it's subbed and simplified for a British publication where the Netroots has to be explained as Blogosphere 101, I you might be interested to read it: in short, through an adversity, it's a paeon to the blogosphere and the possibilities of online advocacy and political campaigning
Jerome Armstrong noticed something really interesting. "What seems most noticeable about the polling is that Obama didn't start tanking until after he 'denounced' Wright. Why is that?"
A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 30% of the nation's Likely Voters believe Barack Obama denounced his former Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, because he was outraged. Most-58%--say he denounced the Pastor for political convenience. The survey was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday night. Obama made his statements about Wright on Tuesday.
Wright held a mini-media tour last weekend capped by a press conference at the National Press Club on Monday. Only 33% of voters believe that Obama was surprised by the views Wright expressed at Monday's press conference. Fifty-two percent (52%) say he was not surprised.
Fifty-six percent (56%) say it's at least somewhat likely that Obama "shares some of Pastor Wright's controversial views about the United States." That figure includes 26% who say it's Very Likely Obama holds such views. At the other end of the spectrum 24% say it's Not Very Likely that Obama shares such views. Just 11% say it's Not at All Likely.
So voters think that Obama pandered by denouncing Wright, that he was not surprised by Wright's views, and that he probably shares them. This can be fixed, but I bet if you looked at the numbers of denunciations of surrogates in general, it doesn't look good unless it's quick and aggressive or not done at all. Stupid media politics is about being on offense, not defense.
This could be turned around into an attack, and it should be, but it wasn't. And so the controversy is on Wright, not the media or McCain's various controversial associates.
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