I have been flabbergasted and irked by Senator Clinton's decision to weigh in on the Pastor Wright issue, personally. Up until now, it's been her campaign spurring things on. But now, after a few days of having that Bosnia video by JedReport do the rounds on the internet and now on the daily news circuit, Senator Clinton has decided to deflect attention from herself (something a presidential candidate short of money rarely does, unless she's in trouble) and onto an issue that has been faithfully dealt with by Senator Obama.
There are plenty of Recommended diaries about the issue on the Big List:
BooMan23 on Wright redux
IndianaDemocrat on Tonya Harding option and
Bob Johnson on Wright redux
When I first read these diaries and read the MSM sources for the stories, I thought this was just Senator Clinton trying to throw us all off the scent from the Bosnia story (or was it the Northern Ireland story; or maybe the pro-NAFTA meeting story; or the Macedonia story... I just can't keep track anymore). But there may be more to the timing of Clinton's bringing up Wright again and now.
I'll foreshadow my conclusions with these following diaries:
by madhav
madhav had a great diary on gently contacting superdelegates who have voted against the leanings of their districts. It includes a pretty large list but I suspect if we were to do the same for Obama supers representing districts won by Clinton, we would find a similar number of supers in the same boat. I didn't think anything would come out of this as supers rarely switch around their votes.
Then, yesterday, leema came out with this story, suggesting that Representative Woolsey was going to vote with her district or potentially switch her vote from Clinton to Obama outright. Here's the diary.
by leema
And here is Representative Woolsey's original endorsement of Senator Clinton, given before the primary process even started. I suspect many of the superdelegates who voted in a similar and untimingly fashion may be watching in horror at how the Clinton campaign not only has run a horribly inefficient, completely amateurish nomination campaign, but also has resorted to attacking a fellow Democrat and favoring the upcoming Republican. That can't make anyone happy or comfortable.
Original endorsement of Senator Clinton
And now, today, we hear of this story about Senator Cantwell:
turneresq on Cantwell
aimeeinkc on Cantwell
And now, back to the timing of Clinton's rehash of the Wright sermons. What I'm suggesting here is that Senator Clinton, doubtless having foreknowledge of a potential revolt not only by superdelegates who have remained silent (not because they support Clinton but because they just can't bring themselves to support Obama just yet, a la Governor Richardson) but also amongst her declared superdelegates, has sought to replay the Wright issue to publicly assure her cabal of supers that all is well.
It's like she's publicly telling them, "hey, look, this Wright issue can still damage Obama, so don't give up on me yet." I think Senator Obama responded brilliantly to the Wright issue. I don't think any issue ever really goes away in a presidential election, but I think when the Republican bring it up again in the fall, it won't have the bite that it did just a few weeks ago; especially with McCain's Hagee problem (and he actively sought out that endorsement). And I'm more and more at ease with Obama's handling of the situation.
But reflect on this... something must have come up during the weekend in the Clinton campaign that forced Senator Clinton herself to go out and try to bring the Wright issue back to the forefront. Of course the Bosnia story has been damaging to a candidate who declared that she should be judged by her "foreign policy experience" and her integrity.
But I think a more dangerous thing for her happened this weekend. Just as the Wright issue was dying down and the Bosnia episode was ramping up, the silent superdelegates must have started rumbling about coming out publicly for Obama. Could this be the avalanche referred to by Tom Brokaw (by Oreo & thezzyzx)?
We are on the cusp of concluding this nomination fight with Obama as our nominee. If Obama and Clinton were to talk about issues and their differences with McCain for the next three months, forcing McCain to spend more and more of his non-existent money and going further and further over his campaign financing cap, that would be fine.
But the nominating fight has degraded into a note-taking opportunity for the Republicans and it is sapping donations from our Congressional committees as they try to compete with our nominees. If the supers won't declare their outright support for Obama and turn away from Clinton, then I think these declarations by Woolsey and Cantwell (two powerful women on Clinton's endorsement list, by the way) are only too clear.