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What next, Obama?
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot
The Democrat primaries are over and Obama is the
presumptive nominee, no matter how slow or reluctant Hillary is
to admit this outcome. Still, it is not over. Until the August
Democrat convention happens, there is enough reason to worry for
Obama.
There are people out there who do not wish Obama
well, who would wish that something spectacular happens to knock
him off. They will be working and hoping to install Hillary as
the actual candidate for the November 2008 elections should that
happen.
Of course, we do not expect Hillary to agree to
the above scenario. But her acts up to this moment, especially
her refusal to concede immediately after the South Dakota and
Montana primaries, invite this conclusion. We think Hillary and
others of like mind are not finished with Obama yet.
Just listening to some media types these days
will force you to stick to this conclusion. For these types,
Obama cannot explain himself enough. No matter how sensible his
explanations, he is considered not ready or that he will not
make a good president.
The crux of their whole claim is that not much is
known about Obama.
Of course, much is known about Obama. At a
rather young age, he has managed to accomplish what others
couldn’t do at a more advanced age. To raise doubt now about
his experience becomes a tool to invite the worst and a code to
encourage the nastiest of racism.
The anti-Obama forces are working hard to do just
that. And this is why the August 2008 convention can be said to be
too far away.
So much can happen between now and August. The
Clinton supporters, all Democrats, are threatening rebellion
even though they and their families have been members of the
party for generations.
With all these anti-Obama forces free out there,
it is time to be cautious. In America, the saying is “It is not
over until the fat lady sings.” And that fat lady will not be
singing until August 2008 is over.
And in this same America, there is also something
like “October Surprise”, a last minute revelation that can be
disastrous to a candidate chances at the polls.
Consider the following: All the negatives about
Obama to date are the doings of others - Reverend Jeremiah
Wright and Father Michael Pfleger.
They have given groundings for most of the excuse out there that
“much is not known about Obama."
The scenario that Reverend Wright and Father
Pfleger, both intelligent men
and supposedly supporters of Obama, have woven around him should
be enough to compel you to ask whether these two men of the
cloth did this deliberately to help or hurt Obama?
In the consideration of what may happen before
the August convention, Reverend Wright and Father
Pfleger, therefore, become
important. Deliberate or not, their acts helped to drive
Obama’s polling numbers down before the crucial primaries in
Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Montana. And Hillary
became the beneficiary.
She owes the whole phenomenon of her late rise in
the polls to the two pastors. These pastors and the tapes of
their past sermons are still out there.
Ironically, the sad thing about the instances of
Reverend Wright and Father Pfleger is not what they said. They
spoke the truth. What both preachers said was the sort of
preaching one should expect from practitioners of liberation
theology.
However, the fault is in the timing and the
time-line of their stories. It couldn’t have been less
pernicious if it had been planned.
When Reverend Wright’s tapes were discovered, the
resulting controversy went on for a while. Well wishers of
Obama hoped that the story would die sooner than later. But
just when it seemed to be ending, on the verge of the critical
primaries of Pennsylvania and Ohio, Reverend Wright surfaced to
re-kindle the controversy. The result was a massive set back
for Obama and a huge gain for Hillary in the election results.
After that, things quieted down. Obama was badly
bruised coming from the polls in Ohio and Pennsylvania. There,
in contrast to what had happened in a previous race in Iowa,
blue collar workers and White women had voted against him.
After Pennsylvania and Ohio, there were two
crucial ones left, Montana and South Dakota. Obama was leading
in the polls in both places.
Then, on the weekend of the polls, Father
Pfleger’s sermon that lambasted
Hillary surfaced. You couldn’t help but wonder what this
intelligent man was thinking when he showed up in the same
Church like Reverend Wright, to preach the same message that had
caused Obama so many headaches already. But he did.
Fortunately, Obama won Montana but lost South
Dakota. Had he lost both, there would have been doubts about his
ability to lead his party to victory in November 2008.
It is not October yet. It is still summer, but
another doubt lurks in the waters of the mind. And it is about
what could happen before the August Democrat’s convention. Like
the shark in the movie “Jaws”
did, you wouldn't want either Reverend
Wright or Father Pfleger to
re-surface, unless you are doing the bidding of Hillary.
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher
www.ghanadot.com,
Washington, DC, June 6, 2008
Permission to publish: Please feel free to
publish or reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted at a
website, email a copy of the web page to
publisher@ghanadot.com . Or
don't publish at all.
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