Obama
moves his IA field director, who also ran Ohio for Obama, into Pennsylvania, but someone's skeptical:
Even before Tewes's appointment was confirmed today, campaign officials had hoped that the extended bus tour -- a commitment Obama's campaign has not made to an individual state since Iowa -- and a sizeable advertising buy over the past week would help to quell internal skeptics.
"My guess is it's a smokescreen, I don't think it changes the strategy at all," said one Obama fundraiser in Pennsylvania. "I think a lot of people were catching wind of the fact that they were writing off Pennsylvania."
They wouldn't write it off though, not with having a internal prediction of losing by just 5 percent, and finally getting a big endorsement
in the state by Bob Casey:
Casey is a first-term senator and the son of a popular former governor of the state. His support could help Obama make inroads among Catholic voters. Catholics constitute more than 30 percent of the state. Casey is scheduled to join Obama in Pittsburgh Friday and campaign with him as Obama travels by across Pennsylvania by bus.
Speaking of buses, Obama's still trying to
defend Wright, but has reved up the
bus engine a bit:
"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church," Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, "The View." The interview will be broadcast Friday.
When did Wright ever acknowledge he'd been divisive- did I miss that happening? Also, the problem for Obama is that the issue has become not just about Wright, but this church in general, that Obama
belongs too:
Still, the Wright episode is not behind Obama and remains a problem for the general election, if Obama is the nominee. NBC reported Thursday that bulletins published by Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side included "anti-Israel" material and a piece calling Italians "garlic noses" and references to "White supremacists" who "run the U.S. government."
Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer said, "I think comments like that have no place in the public discourse."
I just haven't seen any numbers though, aside from polls done right after this broke, that Obama suffers from his relationship to Wright in the Democratic primary. There have been many statewide polls though, which show a continued slide against McCain, which is probably why Obama continues to try and figure out a way to end the story. It'll be interesting to hear Casey's responses to the reporters over Wright & Obama's church, while the tour happens in PA, and if that helps Obama in the state, which remains a
poll average of a 16 percent spread favoring Clinton.
