Church newsletters fuel controversy over Obama's former pastor
Even as fresh polls suggested that Barack Obama emerged mostly unscathed from the controversy over his former pastor, new potentially troublesome remarks came to light yesterday.
This time it's church newsletters from the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
NBC News reported that newsletters at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, while Wright was in charge, reprinted anti-Israel writings. One was a Los Angeles Times column from Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, who wrote, in part, "Why should anyone concede Israel's 'right' to exist, when it has never even acknowledged the foundational crimes of murder and ethnic cleansing by means of which Israel took our towns and villages, our farms and orchards, and made us a nation of refugees?"
Obama had already told the Jerusalem Post that Wright was "outrageously wrong" to reprint that piece, NBC reported.
In a Pew Research Center poll released yesterday, 35 percent of voters said their opinion of Obama had become less favorable because of Wright's statements, in which he blasted the US government for its treatment of minorities and suggested that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were at least partly the result of US policy in the Middle East. But 51 percent of voters polled said that Obama, who gave a widely praised speech on race relations last week in which he repudiated the comments but not the man, had done an excellent or good job handling the situation.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday night also suggested that Obama had sustained little apparent damage because of Wright. In the poll, 32 percent said Obama had addressed the Wright issue "sufficiently," while 26 percent said he needed to do more, and 31 percent either hadn't seen the speech or had no opinion. The survey also indicated that Obama's favorable-unfavorable numbers dropped only slightly to 49 percent positive, 32 percent negative.
FOON RHEE
Angry letter writers carry fund-raising heft
The 20 Hillary Clinton supporters who sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter this week telling her to keep hands off the presidential nomination fight warned ominously that they had been enthusiastic financial backers of the Democratic Party.
Yesterday, a campaign finance watchdog tallied how enthusiastic: The letter-signers, along with their spouses, have contributed $23.6 million to Democrats since 1999, the Center for Responsive Politics said.
That largess includes $554,000 to Clinton's campaigns and political action committee - 10 times what they gave to Barack Obama - and nearly $3 million to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which helped secure a majority in the House in the 2006 elections, catapulting Pelosi into becoming the first female House speaker.
The letter writers were angered by Pelosi's statements that superdelegates, the elected officials and party leaders, should not overturn the will of the people, as measured by the tally of pledged delegates.
FOON RHEE
Clinton urges Democrats to stay in the party fold
Hillary Clinton had some advice yesterday for Democrats thinking of bolting the party if their favorite doesn't win the nomination: Please don't.
"Please think through this decision. It's not a wise decision for yourself or your country," she told voters in North Carolina after she was asked about a poll released yesterday indicating that 28 percent of Clinton supporters and 19 percent of Barack Obama voters would vote for Republican John McCain if their candidate wasn't the nominee.
She said that when a primary is "vigorous," supporters get intense, but the differences between Obama and herself "pale in comparison" to those between Democrats and McCain and she predicted the party will unite.
Obama agreed in an interview that aired last night on ABC's "World News."
"There are going to be some bruised feelings, whoever the nominee is," he said. "I think short term, there is going to be work to do for the nominee to bring the party back together again."
Another indicator of Democratic divisions emerged yesterday, however. In a new CNN/Opinion Research poll, voters were asked, on a scale of 1 to 10, how certain they were to vote in November. If Obama were the nominee, 74 percent of Obama backers - but only 59 percent of Clinton supporters - answered 10. If Clinton won the nomination, 79 percent of her voters, but only 61 percent of Obama supporters - answered 10, according to the poll.
Pollsters caution that in the heat of the primary season, voters often say they will sit out the general election if their favorite doesn't win, but then return to the fold as loyal partisans in the fall.
FOON RHEE
McCain, Romney join to woo Western voters
SALT LAKE CITY - In a show of Republican unity, once bitter foes John McCain and Mitt Romney raised money and campaigned together yesterday for a single goal - electing McCain president. "We are united. Now our job is to energize our party," McCain said in an airport hangar, Romney by his side.
McCain is on a weeklong Western fund-raising swing, and Romney is popular in Utah and Colorado. McCain has praised the former Massachusetts governor as someone who is certain to continue playing a large role in the party, while Romney has suggested that he'd accept the number two spot on the ticket if McCain offered.
ASSOCIATED PRESS 