Obama to Meet the Press

The seriousness of the Rev Wright affair for Obama’s campaign is demonstrated by the fact that this Sunday he is sitting down with Tim Russert for an hour on Meet the Press. The full hour on Meet is generally regarded as the toughest interview in US politics and the Obama campaign must be hoping that if he can get through this the super delegates, and Democratic voters more generally, will be confident that the issue will not destroy him in the fall. The danger, obviously, is that the interview goes badly further...

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Obama has finally had enough of Rev. Wright

On Tuesday, Barack Obama went far further than he had previously in distancing himself from Jeremiah Wright, presenting his former pastor’s recent behaviour as the antithesis of his campaign. But it is hard to imagine that this is the end of the issue.

At a press conference in North Carolina, Obama’ denounced’ Wright’s recent statements and admitted that he did not know him as well as he thought he did. He did not, though, denounce Wright the man.

Wright’s appearance at the National Press Club which sparked Obama’s anger...

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Obama's preacher problem

The last thing that Obama wants right now is Reverend Wright to be front and centre. So, Wright’s media tour with a sit down interview on PBS, a speech broadcast on CNN and a National Press Club breakfast must be causing some heart-burn in Chicago. 

Having watched the Wright interview on PBS, one gets a better idea of where he is coming from. But many of his views are still noxious. The sound-bites are also just awful, take today’s latest:

You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never

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Obama prepares his pivot

When this Democratic primary campaign finally comes to an end, Barack Obama will need to pivot back to the centre. Indeed, the drawn-out nature of the process which has seen Obama lose some of his appeal to independents and Republicans  means that Obama will need to pivot more dramatically than he would if he had wrapped things up early.

On Fox News Sunday, Obama was asked to name an issue where he is prepared to break with Democratic orthodoxy and say the Republicans have the better ideas. He started off rather...

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Why Mitt Romney won't be McCain's VP

Yesterday, Mike Huckabee and John McCain reunited to campaign together in Arkansas and reminded the reporters travelling with them of old times by making Mitt Romney the butt of their jokes as they did so many times during the primaries. Huckabee, to laughter from McCain, declared that: “You know for me, the fortunate thing is I don’t have to go around and unsay anything I said during the campaign”.  The contrast here is with Romney who has had to backtrack on his previous criticisms of McCain and his comment that “I’m...

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Obama campaign manager: Most racists are voting for McCain anyway

This quote from David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s campaign manager, is bound to create a whole bunch of controversy:

“I mean the vast, vast majority of voters who would not vote for Barack Obama in November based on race are probably firmly in John McCain's camp already”

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$10 million for Hillary and where does this go from here?

Hillary Clinton’s ability to raise ten million dollars online in the 24 hours after her win in Pennsylvania is testament both to how the internet is transforming political fund-raising and how committed her hardcore supporters remain. (I still expect, though, that Obama will continue to comfortably out raise her.) Indeed, for Hillary the good news just seems to keep coming at the moment with Rev Wright choosing to do several media events, reviving the controversy over his relationship with Obama again.

Having said this, it is Obama who remains the overwhelming favourite to win the nomination. But for the sake of his general election chances he needs to finish this and fast because the longer the process goes on the more his political vulnerabilities, which I detail in this week’s magazine, are being exposed.

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Wishful thinking from the Old Gray Lady

The New York Times editorial board lambasts Hillary Clinton, who it had previously endorsed, today. 

“The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.”

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Will Obama hit the panic button?

With 99 percent of the vote in, Hillary Clinton has a double-digit lead according to CNN. If you had offered the Hillary camp this on Tuesday morning, I suspect they would have taken it. But this result should not cause them to push the panic button at Obama HQ. Indeed, the biggest danger to them from this result is that they do.

This, though, is just what they are planning to do it seems. The Washington Post reports that: “In the two weeks leading up to the...

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Hillary wins and probably by double digits

With 96 percent of the vote in, Hillary is leading Obama 55 to 45 guaranteeing that the race goes on. I'm crashing on a magazine piece but will have more in a bit. My initial take is that Hillary has beaten the spread and given herself just the sniff of a chance.

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