Sen. Obama’s speech on race: Its impact on superdelegates

Superdelegates Await Impact Of Obama Race Speech

Source: US News and World Report, March 20, 2008 <http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_080320.htm>

The Wall Street Journal reports that after Sen. Barack Obama’s “race-relations speech this week,” the remaining “fence-sitters” among the Democratic superdelegates are waiting to “see how their constituents react to his attempts to soothe racial tension.” Superdelegates are “watching to see whether the senator’s oratory will assuage white voters outraged at Internet videos showing the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. suggesting that America be damned for its treatment of blacks. Separately, many worry that black voters will be outraged by a sense that Sen. Obama is being unfairly judged.”

The Washington Post reports the “question is which will last longer — Obama’s eloquent words about racial divisions and reconciliation or questions about his relationship with a man whose words have shocked the country.” In his column in the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz says, “On the nightly newscasts and in the morning papers, many journalists did try to grapple with the complexity of Obama’s Tuesday address about the roots of racial tension. But when the story hit the Cuisinart of talk-show debate, it got whipped into a single question: Did Obama adequately distance himself from the radioactive reverend? Not surprisingly, most liberals loved the speech and many conservatives — though not all — lambasted it.”

Obama said on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, “In some ways, this controversy has actually shaken me up a little bit and gotten me back into remembering that the odds of me getting elected have always been lower than some of the other conventional candidates. And if I bring something to this conversation, it’s going to be because I do what I did yesterday, which is hopefully open up a new conversation about a new direction in the country.”