Usual Suspects
Obama declines to campaign in Kentucky. Right-wing racist/FOX conspiracy behind his pending loss. McClatchy:
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, facing a likely defeat in next Tuesday’s primary election, won’t travel to Kentucky before the voting, but said he hopes to have much more time to win over Kentucky voters before the November general election.
He also blamed Fox News for disseminating “rumors” about him and said that that and e-mails filled with misinformation that have been “systematically” dispersed have hurt him in Kentucky.
“When we’re able to campaign in a place like Iowa for several months and I can visit and talk to people individually, I do very well. That’s harder to do at this stage in the campaign,” Obama said in a brief telephone interview Friday. “And once we get past the primary, we’ll ble to focus more on those states where we need to make sure people know my track record.”
In contrast, Obama’s rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, will make five stops in Kentucky over the weekend, including appearances at two university campuses.
…
Obama conceded that he has a steep challenge to get his message and background to voters in states such as Kentucky — where he trails Sen. Hillary Clinton by 27 points, according to a poll published earlier this week — and West Virginia, where voters chose Clinton over Obama by 40 points on Tuesday.
“What it says is that I’m not very well known in that part of the country,” Obama said. “Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it’s not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle.”
Obama has been trying to introduce himself to Kentuckians using a series of biographical TV ads, as well as fliers, including one that shows him at a pulpit in front of a church’s cross and pipe organ.
He acknowledged that he’s trying to “reverse a lot of misconceptions” about his background. He is a Christian, although some e-mail chains have said he is a Muslim.
“Part of it is because there have been these e-mails that have been sent out very systematically, presumably by various political opponents, although I don’t know who,” he said. “And there are a lot of voters who get their news from Fox News. Fox has been pumping up rumors about my religious beliefs or my patriotism or what have you since the beginning of the campaign.”
Stay tuned this week for more important political coverage about the gun-toting reglion-clinger vote.
Clarence Page at RealClearPolitics detects that “culture” may be a bigger problem than racism … which is fine if you want to use use culture as a grab bag for any number of political, economic and cultural issues … but oddly thinks Obama, having been revealed as a bigoted hypocrite, is the unifier for the job.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:03 am on Sunday, May 18, 2008
2 Responses to “Usual Suspects”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
May 18th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Does he honestly think the people of Kentucky didn’t hear what he said about the people of Pennsylvania, and from that extrapolated what he must think about them?
May 19th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Hey Rebecca. Your comment was unfavorable to Obama and, therefore, racist per se. We’ll have none of that honkey cracker hillbilly white talk here.