Today was undoubtedly one of the worst days for Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy. Obama spent the better part of the day distancing himself from statements made by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The cable shows then played what appeared to be the same endless loop of videos of Wright’s most offensive comments.
Then Obama sat down with the Chicago Tribune, and provided the newspaper with new details about his dealings with his dealings with Tony Rezko, the Chicago real estate developer currently standing trial on federal criminal charges.
Some obvious questions arise:
Who had put the video compilation together of Wright’s most controversial statements for Youtube and the cable networks? It would be interesting to find out who was behind it. The Wall Street Journal said that the McCain campaign brought a controversial statement to their attention earlier today. And Rush Limbaugh came out with additional material later in the same afternoon. But who was behind the video compilation that the cable networks all had?
Also of interest is wheter this was part of some campaign by an opposition campaign or an interest group of some kind, why did they push the story on a Friday? That’s the last time to break news that is going to damage your opponent. White Houses, both Republican and Democratic, always leak bad news on themselves on Fridays. Political campaigns have also long adopted the tool. Even regular folks will probably get into the act: The “Honey, I was actually playing poker with the guys…” confession is probably best made to one spouse’s on a Friday night. (Personal note: I am neither married or play poker!)
A second interesting thing about the events of today is that Sen. Obama disclosed new information about his dealings with Tony Rezko to the Chicago Tribune. Combined with the issue of his minister’s past sermons, this might seem horrible for Obama. However, the fact that Obama released this information on a Friday is probably the best time to put some distance between himself and Rezko and the candidate and the controversy.
And by putting out the information on the same day as the other controversy, the Obama campaign might have shrewdly lowered the profile of the Rezko disclosures on the very same day of the the other controversy to bury another. If they did that on purpose, it was shrewd politics and adroit political damage control– an improvement over how they have handled other controversies. If all of this, however, was by happenstance, then Sen. Obama might on what feels like one of the worst days of his political career, smile on his good fortune.
I wish someone would do some reporting on this. But alas, I am a reporter, and not an editor of a newspaper…. I am barely even the proprietor of this blog.
What is likely to be the consequence to today’s events? Talking Points Memo has these reader contributions. I try not to do any prognosticating, but TPM’s readers probably have keener insights than those “professional journalists” on all the cable shows.
Update: The Wright and Rezko issues also came one day after the Obama campaign released information about Obama’s earmark requests. So it seems like the Obama campaign got a lot of stuff out quick, at once, and on a day fewer people were paying attention to politics. Maybe the campaign is better at things like this than is the conventional wisdom of the media covering the campaign. On the other hand, if all of this was uncoordinated and largely out of their control, what might have seemed like a hellish day might be a political advantage in the long run.
Second update: Here’s an analysis since posted by Tom Edsall.
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