# Has Obama lost his message? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 30, 2008, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509 "2008-04-30T19:45:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/61 "2008-05-01T06:10:33Z")
Obama didn’t get his political views from Wright. He just borrowed a particular phrase. ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/62 "2008-05-01T06:20:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Later he would base his 2004 keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention on a Wright sermon called “Audacity to Hope,” --also the inspiration for Obama’s second memoir, “The Audacity of Hope.” [Cite](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/religion/chi-070121-relig_wright,1,271630.story?page=2) > [@](#): > > Obama, too, also came to the city as a young unknown. Emerging from relative obscurity with his win in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary race for a U.S. Senate seat, he found a growing audience by preaching the politics of social justice and common ground. He has encouraged Democrats to acknowledge the power of faith in the lives of Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/63 "2008-05-01T06:22:24Z")
What is that supposed to be a cite for other than the already acknowledged source of a particular phrase? ---
**Author:** ![9thFloor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/9/b487fb/32.png) [@9thFloor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/9thFloor)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/64 "2008-05-01T07:23:58Z")
[QUOTE=Kozmik] Barack Obama became a Christian after hearing a 1988 sermon by Jeremiah Wright called “The Audacity to Hope”. Obama gave the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, which I attended, called “The Audacity of Hope”. And his book is entitled “The Audacity of Hope”. Now that Senator Obama distanced himself from Reverend Wright, what does that tell you? [/QUOTE] That he has the Audacity to Hope that he can brush Wright off. He can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/65 "2008-05-01T07:32:50Z")
How could he lose his message? His message was “change”. You could find that in your couch cushions. ---
**Author:** ![9thFloor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/9/b487fb/32.png) [@9thFloor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/9thFloor)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/66 "2008-05-01T07:34:18Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] And you had the opportunity to recognize that Wright’s statement regarding the audacity of hope is separate from his statement regarding the persistence of racism. You also had the opportunity to recognize that Wright’s views of the audacity of hope may, indeed, have been slightly different from the interpretation that Obama took from the message years ago and that Wright’s views might have changed in the meantime, meaning that Obama’s views do not have to have changed, at all. Yet you failed to either recognize the possible differences between your cryptic claims and reality or take the time to set forth an actual train of thought to be examined, making, instead, a fairly silly point the thrust of one more tired rant disguised as a debate. This thread can stay open a while longer in case someone (perhaps even you) can put together an actual thesis to debate, but if it is going to be just one more rant against candidate X, I am going to close it. [/QUOTE] Folks keep throwing around the idea, by the way, that Wright’s views “might have changed” in the meantime. Does anyone have a cite that Wright’s views have changed from 20 years ago in terms of Black Liberation Theology or, well, pretty much anything of import? ---
**Author:** ![9thFloor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/9/b487fb/32.png) [@9thFloor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/9thFloor)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/67 "2008-05-01T07:35:44Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Obama didn’t get his political views from Wright. He just borrowed a particular phrase. [/QUOTE] He didn’t say he got his political \*\*views \*\*from Wright. He said **political message.** Which, obviously, he did. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/68 "2008-05-01T07:57:18Z")
[QUOTE=Kozmik] Now that Senator Obama distanced himself from Reverend Wright, what does that tell you? [/QUOTE] All it tells me is that at one time they were in relative agreement on certain beliefs; and since then, one of them has evolved and the other has moved into other beliefs. That does not nullify the original beliefs; in Obama’s case it strengthens them. This is one of the silliest non-debates I’ve seen in a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/69 "2008-05-01T08:11:26Z")
[QUOTE=9thFloor] He didn’t say he got his political \*\*views \*\*from Wright. He said **political message.** Which, obviously, he did. [/QUOTE] Yes and in denouncing the Reverend Wright, Obama was denouncing his **religious message**. Obama’s religious views, of course, are his own personal views. But in _not_ **re-affirming** the political message, which he got from Reverend Wright, he was not **denouncing** the political views of Wright. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/70 "2008-05-01T13:17:40Z")
[QUOTE=Kozmik] Wright and Obama had the same views. Wright changed his views. Obama didn’t change his views. So by de-nouncing Wright and re-affirming the (past) message of Wright as his own, Obama is showing that Wright did change his views - and challenging Wright to re-affirm the message he taught him. Obama is not only re-affirming the message of hope, the views that Obama and Wright once shared but re-affirming the the message of audacity, re-affirming why Obama denounced Wright. The Audacity of Hope. [/QUOTE] If you are asserting this on your own and not simply echoing my statement as a way to clarify the situation, I will note that this is diametrically opposed to the statements made to suuport your OP that explicitly stated > [@](#): > > Well, since the theme of Obama’s message originated with his pastor of 20 years, now that he denounced his pastor, how can he keep his message. So, yes, I think he has lost his message. Which looks to me as though there was no point to this thread. (I am also having difficulty accepting at face value the claim that you opened the OP on a particular morning to find a Wright ranting followed by Obama denouncing. This has been in backburner news stories about Obama since last fall and has been front page news, off and on, since February.) [QUOTE=9thFloor] Folks keep throwing around the idea, by the way, that Wright’s views “might have changed” in the meantime. Does anyone have a cite that Wright’s views have changed from 20 years ago in terms of Black Liberation Theology or, well, pretty much anything of import? [/QUOTE] Actually, I suspect that Wright’s views of the world have not changed in a long time. My point was a hypothetical to demonstrate that the OP was posted with too little information to sustain itself. I will note, however, that the “audacity of hope” is a philosophical and theological position and that Wright’s statements that are causing such a fuss are political statements. Any number of statesmen, businessmen, and other leaders have taken philosophical direction from a particular idea voiced by a mentor, but have split from the source of that idea when it came to practical applications. The idea that we need to have a genuine hope that things can change and then summon the courage to go forth and attempt to effect those changes is a different set of thoughts than a declaration of the particular social situations in the U.S. with specific calls for particular actions. One may, for example, truly believe in some of the earliest neo-conservative ideas that the U.S. should use its place and power in the world to make the world a better place, even including intervening in the affairs of other nations, (a philosophical idea), without thinking that it was a good idea to make up lies to get the U.S. to invade a particular country in a particular way that would actually encourage recruitment by the people we oppose (a political idea). ---
**Author:** ![Flipshod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f19dbf/32.png) [@Flipshod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flipshod)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/71 "2008-05-01T13:46:21Z")
[QUOTE=stolichnaya] I think this may be the most ridiculous debate I have ever voluntarily participated in, and I sometimes smoke weed. [/QUOTE] Yep. 😃😃 ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/72 "2008-05-01T13:52:04Z")
This has got to be one of the sillier debates of this election season, and that’s saying something. But in an age where Obama’s bowling score and things he wrote on a twelve-year-old questionnaire get discussede more than, say, his principled-yet-unpopular stand on the gas tax holiday, I’m not surprised. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/73 "2008-05-01T13:57:01Z")
If nothing else the Wright debacle has severely handicapped Obama’s ability to deliver his message effectively. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/74 "2008-05-01T14:18:49Z")
I’d like to raise the quality of the ‘debate’. :rolleyes: [Rumsfeld shook hands with Saddam Hussein](http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blsaddamrumsfeld.htm), then sold him WMDs. Republicans tell me that [McCain fathered a black baby](http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/03/21/the_anatomy_of_a_smear_campaign/). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/75 "2008-05-01T14:23:55Z")
[QUOTE=glee] I’d like to raise the quality of the ‘debate’. :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] While this topic is being addressed in a confused manner and does not seem to have actually found a point, I would not judge it to be a purely political smear effort, so I do not think your examples are comparable. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/76 "2008-05-01T14:53:56Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] While this topic is being addressed in a confused manner and does not seem to have actually found a point, I would not judge it to be a purely political smear effort, so I do not think your examples are comparable. [/QUOTE] I was hoping that my post would help the OP realise exactly what you say above. However it is clear that [del]Osama[/del] Obama **will** get smeared and that quotes of Rev Wright will appear incessantly as Obama ‘policy’ in the campaign. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/77 "2008-05-01T14:57:30Z")
Whereas nothing McCain has said or done will be used to attack him or taken out of context by the good and just Democrat election machine… -XT ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/78 "2008-05-01T15:12:17Z")
[QUOTE=xtisme] Whereas nothing McCain has said or done will be used to attack him or taken out of context by the good and just Democrat election machine… -XT [/QUOTE] I _wish_ the Dems had the balls to get down and dirty once in a while. The last two elections have been nothing but milktoast. This time around I’d hope to hear plenty about the Keating Five, adultery, thieving, junkie wife, 100 years of war, crazy temper and all the other shit that the Pubs would pounce on in a second if it was a Dem. Unfortunately, the media is never as eager to trash Republicans as it is with Dems. Imagine if Michelle Obama had ever admitted to stealing from her own charity to support a drug habit. It would be wall to wall for months. ---
**Author:** ![ManiacMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b782af/32.png) [@ManiacMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ManiacMan)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/79 "2008-05-01T16:09:11Z")
The man never had a message… ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509/80 "2008-05-01T17:17:51Z")
Much of the black community believes AIDS is an invention of white folk designed to kill blacks. Many believe whites deliberately put drugs in black neighborhoods to destroy them. They think the prison system is designed to warehouse blacks and to take away their voting privileges. Some believe wars are started to send blacks to go fight and die while the rich get richer. This is a large part of who Wright preaches to. He is speaking to a specific audience. If you listened to his speeches you would note the black audience hooting in approval as he made the statements. Obama does not buy these ideas. Nor is he responsible for them. I do not know if Wright believes them either but they help make his church successful. Omamas message is still change. It is not a hard sell after the Shrub. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-obama-lost-his-message/447509.md?page=5)