The Filter: April 30, 2008

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

OBAMA'S SISTER SOULJAH MOMENT
(Richard Wolffe, Newsweek)
For a campaign that had little comment on Wright's media blitz on Monday, Obama's press conference was a complete reversal. Many pundits have wondered aloud why Barack Obama has not had a Sister Souljah moment in this campaign, evoking Bill Clinton's 1992 repudiation of the hip-hop star's inflammatory and racist comments. In Winston-Salem Obama went far beyond Clinton's criticism, disowning his former pastor—and running the risk of alienating a community on the South Side of Chicago that has been among his most ardent supporters. Yet it didn't sound as though Obama was in the mood for political calculation on Tuesday.

MORE:
Obama's Break with Ex-Pastor Sets Sharp Shift in Tone (Jeff Zeleny and Adam Nagourney, New York Times)
The first real evidence of whether the controversy has extracted a political price could come on Tuesday. Superdelegates suggested that they would watch closely to see how voters respond in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries and beyond.

Obama Breaks with Former Pastor (Ben Smith, Politico)
In the short term, this furor presents a delicate challenge for Clinton, who must ride the issue without seeming to stoke it. “Any attempt to keep the issue alive for its own sake will hurt whoever does that,” Shrum said. Conversations with uncommitted superdelegates Tuesday afternoon revealed no immediate shifts as a result of Wright’s or Obama’s words.

WRIGHT, JEFFERSON AND THE WRATH OF GOD
(John Nichols, The Nation)
Not all of what Wright says is comforting. Nor are his views universally appealing or entirely unassailable. But they are very much within the mainstream of American religious and political discourse. The problem is not Jeremiah Wright. The problem is a contemporary political culture that has come to rely on character assassination as an easy tool for reversing electoral misfortune -- and a media that willingly invites manipulation. Let's not forget how Wright became an issue in the 2008 presidential race. Republican operatives, fretful about their party's political fortunes, decided that the only way to weaken the candidacy of Wright's longtime parishioner, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, was by suggesting the Democratic presidential front-runner was in the sway of an anti-American radical. That end was achieved by separating out from long and thoughtful sermons regarding matters biblical and political seemingly offensive phrases and then inviting the Grand Old Party's media echo chamber to repeat the sound bites until they became conventional "wisdom."

OR: Obama's Chickens Come Home to Roost (Robert Tracinski, TIA Daily)
he purpose of Obama's famous speech on race was to make Wright seem reasonable, understandable, even mainstream. The Obama campaign's hope, no doubt, was that this would make the Wright story go away. But Wright interpreted it as an invitation. If he's so understandable and mainstream, why not go on a media tour to explain himself to the world? And why not use Obama's own arguments to justify himself and browbeat his critics? All of this is why it is no use for Obama to backpedal from his association with Reverend Wright, or to denounce him now, six weeks too late.

OBAMA THE INEVITABLE
(Gabor Steingart, Der Spiegel)
The debate that has now begun comes too late for Hillary Clinton. The superdelegates, who can vote for the candidate of their choice without taking voter preferences into account, in fact have no other choice but to nominate Obama. They will have to suppress the growing fear that the Democrats cannot win the election against Republican candidate John McCain in November if Obama is their candidate. Still, as long as Obama can hold onto his slight lead in the number of pledged delegates, he will be the inevitable candidate. In fact, there is now almost a national political obligation to nominate Obama. A vote by superdelegates against Obama would set off shock waves within American society, with incalculable consequences. Young people would be outraged, intellectuals would be bitter and violence could erupt in predominantly black urban neighborhoods around the country. An apparent rejection of her black rival would also do more to harm Hillary Clinton than help her campaign. A candidacy against the background of angry youth or even burning barricades would be of little value.

MORE: Obama May Win Hill Superdelegate Fight (Politico)
Capitol Hill insiders say the battle for congressional superdelegates is over, and one Senate supporter of Barack Obama is hinting strongly that he has prevailed over Hillary Rodham Clinton. While more than 80 Democrats in the House and Senate have yet to state their preferences in the race for the Democratic nomination, sources said Tuesday that most of them have already made up their minds and have told the campaigns where they stand.

MCCAIN STRENGTHENING HIS POLITICAL MARRIAGE
(Carl Hulse, New York Times)
Many Republicans have now concluded that it is only Mr. McCain’s willingness to challenge recent Republican orthodoxy that has left him in a position to credibly contend for the White House, given public dissatisfaction with Republican leadership... But the potential for disharmony certainly exists, given the likelihood that Democrats will retain control of Congress no matter who wins the presidency, combined with Mr. McCain’s demonstrated capacity for engineering compromises, whether it be campaign finance law, immigration or the environment. “If you are a single-issue person or a really ideological person on a cluster of issues, in John McCain your ship has not come in,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a close McCain ally. “He will be conservative, but this hard-edge ideology that is embraced by the hard left and the hard right, John has made a career of not giving in to that.” In fact, some see a potentially divided government, with Mr. McCain on one side and a Democratic Congress on the other, as an opportunity to make major agreements. And that is a prospect that could leave some Republicans now in the McCain campaign camp out of the final picture.

BEDSIDE MANNER: HOW CLINTON AND OBAMA TRULY DIFFER ON HEALTH CARE
(Daniel Widome, San Francisco Chronicle)
Clinton's plan includes a governmental mandate that every individual has health coverage, and Obama's doesn't. Clinton argues that without a mandate, healthy people will not buy insurance and will seek health care only when they get sick. This could raise costs for everyone else and threaten the viability of any reformed health care system. Obama argues that the problem is not that people don't want health coverage; it's that they cannot afford it... Some have suggested that Obama's plan would leave more people uninsured than Clinton's. As a result, Obama no longer describes his plan as "universal." Clinton, however, still does. This only adds to the confusion. "Mandating" is not "providing"--just because the government requires something does not make it so... Rightly or wrongly, both Clinton and Obama are champions of the "near-universal." But assume that mandates really are indispensable. In a health system still dependent on private insurers (as both Clinton and Obama propose), the clearest beneficiaries of an individual mandate would be private insurers. The mandate represents a bargain: The government gets tighter regulation of the insurance industry, and private insurers receive millions of guaranteed new customers in return. Clinton's plan, with its explicit mandate, concedes this deal up front. Obama's plan, without a mandate, does not. He simply starts from a stronger negotiating position than Clinton.

HEATED CAMPAIGN SOURING DEMOCRATS ON RIVALS
(Associated Press)
Voters increasingly dislike the Democratic presidential candidate they are not supporting, according to a new survey and exit polls, raising questions about the party's White House chances as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama's contentious nomination battle drags on. The Associated Press-Yahoo survey shows Obama supporters with negative views of the former first lady have grown from 35% in November to 44% this month — including one-quarter with very unfavorable feelings. Obama backers who do not like Clinton say they would vote for Republican candidate John McCain over her by a 2-to-1 ratio. Among Clinton supporters, those with unfavorable views of Obama have risen from 26% to 42% during the same period — with negative opinions doubling to 20%. Those with unfavorable views say they would vote for McCain over Obama by a 3-to-1 ratio, though many have not made up their minds.

MORE: Clinton to Dems: Don't Switch Sides (Indianapolis Star)
Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday it would be "the height of political foolishness" for Democrats to back a Republican, or not vote at all, if they're disappointed by the outcome of the long-running nomination battle between her and Barack Obama.

CLINTON SEEKS EDGE BY FOCUSING ON VOTER INSECURITIES
(Timothy Aeppel, Wall Street Journal)
Hillary Clinton's embrace of the tiny industrial-magnet industry in Indiana, site of Tuesday's primary, plays to the insecurities of blue-collar voters -- a successful strategy in other states. By focusing on voter fears about globalization and job losses in troubled industries, Sen. Clinton has cultivated support among factory workers and others worried about U.S. competitiveness that has given her an edge over Barack Obama in several key races, including Pennsylvania and Ohio... One of the Clinton campaign's first television commercials to run in Indiana earlier this month focused on a now-shuttered magnet factory in Valparaiso called Magnaquench, which was closed in 2003, wiping out 200 jobs. Magnaquench was the only U.S. producer of magnets needed for so-called smart bombs, making it a poster child for those who worry that the loss of manufacturing muscle is compromising U.S. defenses... In the ad, the candidate notes that President Bush could have stopped the shutdown, but didn't. Ironically, the initial sale of Magnaquench -- to a group of investors that included two Chinese companies -- occurred in 1995, when the president was Sen. Clinton's husband, who also took no steps to block the sale.

GOP GIVES CLINTON THE SILENT TREATMENT
(Jonathan Martin, Politico)
Hillary Clinton’s decisive Pennsylvania primary win last week may have reinvigorated her campaign, but you wouldn’t know it from listening to the Republican party. The National Republican Congressional Committee has purchased $500,000 in anti-Barack Obama ads for use in two upcoming special House elections. The Republican National Committee is flooding reporters with anti-Obama emails. Presumptive nominee John McCain and GOP surrogates have seized on new remarks by Obama’s controversial former pastor. From top to bottom, from McCain down to the youthful campaign and party staffers who work nearly around the clock to get him elected, the working assumption seems to be that the Democratic contest is over and Obama has won. Even when Clinton attacks McCain, President Bush or GOP policies, the response is either outright silence or snarky, dismissive ridicule about a failed campaign barely relevant enough to merit a response.