In his post below Nicholas highlights the disparity between the number of Hillary and Bill Clinton appearances in Indiana and those by Barack and Michelle Obama. What we're seeing is a candidate going into hiding. Obama is limiting his public appearances in order to avoid potentially embarrassing questions and comments about Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It's the classic Democratic response to any problem: hunker down and wait for it to blow over.
When the Wright "scandal" started to gain traction, it became clear fairly quickly that the Obama campaign had not come up with a strategy ahead of time to deal with it. I saw what I believe to be Barack Obama's response, which was to concede the inflammatory nature of Wright's remarks while using them and that concession as a springboard to guide the conversation onto issues that actually matter. I also saw what I believe to be the DC Democrats' response, which was the repeated, ever-intensifying repudiation of those remarks and the inartful, condescending descriptions of Wright as Obama's "former" pastor, as some crazy old uncle, a once-respected man going through a pitiable decline in his old age.
The latter strategy has won the day, for now Obama isn't even attempting to reshape or redirect the conversation. He's simply issuing one condemnation after another, each one sharper than the last. Again, this is the classic DC Democratic response to a problem. They have no long-range vision whatsoever. All they care about is trying to get rid of the problem right now.
But no matter how many times Obama and his campaign might say it, the plain fact is that most church-going Americans don't disagree with their pastors, at least not to the extent Obama is trying to convince us he does. Rev. Wright was Obama's pastor for 20 years, while the average tenure for a Protestant minister is fewer than five years. Trying to convince us that he spent 20 years under the spiritual leadership of a man with whom he disagrees so substantially just makes Obama look like yet another politician who is willing to through anyone under the bus if it helps a campaign. And that's not even the worst of this.
The worst part of this is that the knee-jerk Democratic response of denouncing, renouncing, repudiating and rejecting anything and everything that stirs up a fuss among anyone only plays into the GOP strategy of accusing Democrats of having no principles, no values, no core convictions to guide them.
The problem with the above accusation is that it's true. Democrats make it true by following the same stupid advice again and again. Consider this: two weeks before the 2004 election Bush's approval rating was at 44%. Americans were already tired of the Iraq War, and a clear majority said that the country was heading in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, a lot of Americans thought of John Kerry as a wishy-washy flip-flopper who had no inherent beliefs or convictions about anything. And whatever he may have been before his campaign, once Kerry secured the Democratic nomination that's exactly what he became.
Now Obama's following the same path. It's as if the 2004 election never happened, as if Americans haven't made it clear many times that they will choose someone whose policies they hate and fear and whom they find personally distasteful, yet who is considered to be a principled person, unwavering in their beliefs, if the alternative is someone with whom they strongly agree but who they think has no solid beliefs and who will say and do whatever they think the people want. That's how Bush and Kerry were presented in 2004, and that's exactly how McCain and Obama will be presented this year.
Obama has one small chance to redeem this situation. First, he needs to meet with Jeremiah Wright and fix the relationship. Then he needs to make some appearances with Wright. Obama needs to apologize for following bad, stupid advice when he tried to make it seem as if he really didn't know Wright and didn't have a close relationship with him. He also needs to make it clear that while he may not agree with the way Rev. Wright describes the problems in this country, he does agree with Wright that there are significant challenges facing this country, and thanks to the guidance of people like Rev. Wright, Obama is ready to take on those challenges.
Take a stand, Obama. Show us that you do have core principles, and that no one can shake them, no one can make you reject who you are. Be the new kind of politician you've been claiming to be, and you can pull yourself out of this hole.
PS - Chances that Obama will come up with a BS family-related excuse to drop out of the race (with plans to run again in 4 or 8 years): 10% - but rising the longer he lets this nonsense continue.