|
|
"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
|
Obama's speech on race may have saved his campaign
|
|---|
| Parent(s) |
Candidate
|
| Contributor | WesternDem |
| Last Edited | WesternDem Mar 18, 2008 06:52pm |
| Logged |
0
|
| Category | Analysis |
| News Date | Wednesday, March 19, 2008 12:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | WASHINGTON — Sen. Barack Obama may have righted his shaken presidential campaign with his bold speech on race Tuesday, political analysts said.
"I've never heard anybody give a speech like that, ever. It transcends John F. Kennedy's speech on his faith and his politics," said G. Terry Madonna, director for the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Pennsylvania's Franklin & Marshall College. "I think his candidacy was in serious, serious trouble. I think that this speech saved his campaign."
Madonna and other analysts said Obama's remarks will likely reaffirm his popularity among African-American voters and ease concerns among upscale white suburban voters about the controversial opinions of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
But Obama's address isn't likely to sway many working-class white Democrats, who helped Sen. Hillary Clinton win in Texas and Ohio and who appear poised to do the same for her in Pennsylvania's Democratic presidential primary on April 22.
"It was a risky speech, but on the whole it will help more than it will hurt," said Dante Scala, a University of New Hampshire political science professor. "But it's going to take more than one speech for him to get white working-class Democrats. He's going to have to put himself out front of those voters again and again. He's got to find a way of telling them, 'What I have in mind will help you.'" |
| Share |
|
|
2¢
|
|
| Article | Read Full Article |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
|
