As I said the threads here have little bearing nor did they represent the national cross section of the US.
Obama won the nomination in North Carolina. The nomination has been his since that date—your opinion obviously varies.
Father Pfleger may have been a factor, but has that story really had much national exposure to anyone who cares? I read a blurb or two about it online but that was about it. I normally don’t watch the national news–did it get a lot of airplay? FOX is not a representative network—do you think those folks watching FOX for the news were planning on voting for Obama?
Now I am willing to concede I might be incorrect here, but as a moderate I can’t see why I should care anything about this issue? Right wing–sure it will have a lot of airplay. Left wing–not at all since Obama is their nominee.
Middle—can you tell me why I or people in my position should care? Moderates in general are not really religious (I believe it is less then 50%) so why should we care? The case is being made that this matters to people–which people are we talking about? I do believe that this could be an issue for some people but it seems it will have a short airlife. YMMV obviously.
Well, so what? Perhaps he sees that the church he once loved has come to represent something he can no longer support, by inviting divisive figures like Pfleger to the pulpit, even after his disavowing of such hateful rhetoric. And since he hasn’t attended there in over a year, why not just officially resign now, rather than keep the now-albatross hanging around his neck? I have no idea what the objection to that could possibly be.
If Father Pfleger is such a divisive figure that Obama cannot support, why did he go out of his way to court his support in the past and steer a $100,000 earmrk to his church?
I suspect that we could probably make up something entirely, poll a group of people and 18% of them would say that the alleged scandal made them think less of the “Joe Doe” candidate. It has to do with the way the question is worded.
I would think that many people have had the good fortune to shop in Chinatown in New York and San Francisco. Have you never chosen a restaurant based on the ethnic traditions involved in food selection and preparation? I certainly discuss restaurant shopping with my friends.
I also make it a point to shop in the ethnic groceries in my neighborhood because they offer unusual items. The Russian store has the best havarti. The Indian store has the best snacks and sometimes she will make homemade items for me. Middle Eastern recipes for pastries are the best. Swett’s is the best place for soul food or a meat-n-3 in the Mid South. (If it is good enough for Obama…) And this doesn’t even address Italian or Mexican cuisine. Or Thai. Or Ethiopian.
You mean you don’t discuss these things with your friends?
Both Pfleger and Wright represent the social activism of American Christianity, which has a long, long heritage. Such Christian activists do tend to be leftist, that is true. Of course, the right takes a far more subtle approach to social activism in the inner city, prefering to support entreprenuership and reduced taxes as a means to assuage the suffering of the oppressed. And the media, of course, overlooks their efforts, prefering to concentrate attention on gaudy, flashy programs like school lunches, voter registration, that sort of thing.
So I’m guessing this darkly suspicious “earmark” (give me a moment, while I clutch my pearls and swoon…) is aimed at one of those programs. Don’t actually know about it, but I’m willing to risk it. Of course, it may be to buy methadone for Barack’s kids so they don’t have a withdrawal fit onstage…
Indeed, it was a youth center at a Catholic Church run by Father Pfleger. However, it identifies itself as an “African-American” Catholic Church, so I guess that makes it radical and any money given to its programs bood money.
And if they clearly reject those words that should be enough to not continue to bring it up.
How should voters discover those beliefs? A cut and paste of a few statements on a message board? Should voters listen to sound bites taken out of context and played repeatedly by pundits with a political agenda? Does being a responsible citizen and voter have more responsibility than that? So far you’ve offered very little to show what their beliefs are. From the list you offered I see
which I can understand raising a question on the heals of the Wright debacle. The problem is without further information there’s no reasonable conclusion to be reached. Knowing what I do about how the media loves to sensationalize an incident and how particular pundits are prone to misrepresent things to support their political leaning, I did a little more research. I watched more of Wright’s sermons than a 5 second sound bite and discovered that the main thrust of the sermon had very little to do with the offensive clip.
Since you claim Obama should be held responsible to some degree for the beliefs of his congregation and Wright then in the interests of fair play I guess Obama deserves some credit for any positive beliefs and credit for all the positive community work that congregations has done. If we take time to be fair and responsible and look a little closer do we give Obama credit for belonging to a congregation that has had a much more positive effect on their community than the few negatives that have been unfairly stressed?
I think it’s accurate to say voters have been swayed by emotional manipulation and that’s what this whole Wright thing is now. It’s our own dam fault and it’s unfortunate that we don’t pay enough attention to what our elected officials are doing. We have gotten lazy and many voters , with busy lives to worry about, base their votes on a uninformed emotional reaction to a few words. Political operatives who know this manufacture crap like the Wright controversy and beat us to death with it so enough voters will be swayed by a gut reaction to something distasteful {even if it’s a lie} not by the important relevant issues.
Their problem this election is that voters already have a very bad emotional response to Bush and company. Add to that that more voters are starting to get wise to those kind of tactics and rejecting them precisely because of the Bush admin.
The ones I linked to in post #112. The ones to which your only counter-argument has been to state, without any proof, that the people being polled were all lying if they said they had some concern about Obama and his Church.
It is, of course, impossible to divine what people will be feeling in November. Any poll that asks how much something will mean to someone several months hence is suspect, in my opinion. I’m pretty set in my ways, and even I don’t know how I’ll feel about things in November.
And quite honestly, I’m deeply disappointed in the reactions of Republicans and right-wingers in general to Obama and his church, particularly in light of his comments yesterday. I haven’t heard any candidate, with the possible exception of Mike Huckabee, declare so often and so passionately a personal commitment to Jesus Christ and to the service of others in His name than has Barack Obama. He wears his faith on his sleeve, and as he said yesterday, it influences every aspect of his life.
One would think that those who so infamously judge others on the basis of their theological compatibility would have some modicum of sympathy for a fellow Christian. Fox News carried his speech live, and immediately upon its completion zeroed in — not on what he said about his profound faith and desire to worship God in a place of quiet reflection — but on his refusal to condemn an entire congregation of worshippers on account of a couple of flaky pastors, one of whom was a visitor.
As far as I’m concerned, the rather Pharisaical nature of right-wing religion is manifesting itself in the various hysterical and irrational reactions to all this. How ironic that, in the end, the humble faith of a lone liberal would put to shame decades of cheap talk and high-and-mighty claims made by people who use Jesus as a battle flag.