The race for democratic candidate is in its final stages and heating up; Clinton and Obama are close. Its times like these that each candidate wishes and prays that previous mistakes, negative associations and political blunders, do not arise. Hilary Clinton had a major embarrassment when she falsely claimed that she entered a Bosnian war zone, and landed under fire, even though the war had officially ended 3 months before her visit. Obama though seems to be under scrutiny due to his association with the Trinity Church in Chicago and moreover the close links to the Pastor of the church Rev Dr Jeremiah Wright, who is increasingly becoming a political liability.
It could be argued that it is vital for a Presidential candidate to be Christian, or at least highly accepting of the religion due to the significant population of deeply Christian voters, especially in the ‘flyer over’ states. After George Bush was caught for drink driving he claimed he had ‘found God’ and became deeply Christian. Bush won most of the central states and seemed to be forgiven by these populations for his previous sin. This shows the power of the religious ‘vote’.
Barack Obama is though under duress about the Church he has been part of since 1991. Due to its ‘Commitment to the black community’ and its claims to ‘Embrace the Black value system’ it is being labelled as a separatist church. This may not go down too well with some American voters and the notion has been attacked in some news forums, which note that true Christianity should transcend race. One spokesman on Fox news even questioned Obama’s Christianity; a slanderous accusation which could potentially be very damming to his campaign.
Trinity Church though advocates that it does not assume superiority or separatism but the right and freedom for African Americans to be able to speak for themselves as subjects in history not objects of history. They claim the Church gives the ability for ‘self determinism’ for Black Christians.
The Pastor Jeremiah Wright Junior is the hot button topic in America though and the centre of most the controversy. Obama claims him to be ‘like an uncle’, a man who taught him how to find god and his obligations to the poor. This is a positive factor and is supported by the fact that Obama met Jeremiah when trying to secure jobs for steel workers in Chicago. Although, this is also the Pastor who said in his sermon that: “the stuff we’ve (America) done overseas is now brought back in to our own front yard”, this is referring to the 9/11 bombings and how the wars and attacks America have made previously have generated this action upon the nation. 9/11 is obviously a very delicate subject in America, and a statement that implies that the USA brought it upon themselves is highly controversial and unpopular. A belief a potential candidate for the Democrats would not want associated with him.
Jeremiah has also said: “the Government lied about Pearl harbour they knew the Japanese were going to attack”, that “Paranoid patriots are in charge of home land stupidity (security)”, that the nation should be labelled “the US of KKK” and that the government “purposefully infected African Americans men with syphilis”. These are statements Obama would probably want to distance himself from as the fear of offending anyone in this close race is sky high and these statements would conceivably do such a thing.
Barack Obama has done this saying on Fox news that he was not attending Trinity when these comments were made and that he only knew about them when they were released on the news channels. He also noted that Wright is retiring and is not acting in his campaign. Obama was calm and controlled in his defence of Trinity Church, which may convey a notion that he feels at ease with his conscious. That he is not associated with such wild accusations. Even so controversial stories such as these would notably be desired to be kept at bay until the final election results have been counted.
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