Just after the Wright controversy ignited, two unrelated polls, one conducted by the Pew Research Center and one by USA Today/Gallup, indicated damage to Obama’s popularity; this was prior to his victory in the North Carolina primary.

 

Pew reported that, among Democratic voters, Obama’s famous lead over Clinton had disappeared, with a near-even split in terms of support (47 percent Obama, versus 45 percent Clinton). A mere month earlier, Obama had held a ten percentage point lead over his rival (49 percent versus 39 percent). The Pew report, released May 1, asserted that, “The tightening Democratic race reflects a modest but consistent decline in Obama's personal image rather than improved impressions of Clinton,” adding that poll participants were less likely to describe him in positive terms than they had prior to the Wright controversy.

 

National paper USA Today, meanwhile, stated, based it on its poll results, conducted with Gallup, that “Barack Obama's national standing has been significantly damaged by the controversy over his former pastor,” and said that Clinton had now taken over the lead by seven percentage points, versus her ten-point trail behind Obama prior to the Wright episode just a short time before.

 

What does all this mean, especially considering the subsequent Obama victory shortly after these poll results were collected?

 

The Wright controversy was “a short term hurt for Obama,“ says Susan M. Tellem, APR of Los Angeles-based Tellem Worldwide, Inc. (www.tellem.com). “The young people and the Boomers I’ve seen wearing his shirts love the man and do not want Hillary. These voters are looking for someone new and counting on the word ‘change’ even though Obama appears to lack substance compared to Hillary,” Tellem says.

 

And if Obama gets the nomination, will this issue come back to haunt him? “If Obama gets the nomination, McCain will get very tough and we’ll see some voters who were enamored with an African American and new guy on the block start to question his experience,” Tellem states. “It will be very hard to compare him to McCain in the experience and patriotism department, especially if McCain focuses on the Reverend [Wright] and Obama’s wife [regarding her comments that now is the first time she is proud of her country].”

 

Obama’s manner in handling the controversy may have helped, says Beliefnet.com politics editor and God-o-Meter blogger Dan Gilgoff. “He was smart, being somewhat honest, and stood by Wright, while denouncing his comments. Wright then turned around and made things worse for him; he could have just kept quiet for these next few months,” Gilgoff says, adding that perhaps Wright, who “inserts himself into the public eye” is using this controversy to gain attention for his own causes.

 

A former political correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, Gilgoff is author of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War.

 

Communication expert, Leslie G. Ungar, head of OH-based Electric Impulse Communications, Inc. (http://www.electricimpulse.com/), disagrees, saying that Obama completely mishandled the controversy “from beginning to end. Talk about fairy tales! He is a member of this church for twenty years and just in the last two weeks he becomes aware of all the pastor said? With all that has been said, written, critiqued, commented, and asked—why wasn’t Obama more curious?”

 

“I call it the 'stupid zone,' where we live when we don’t question ourselves and others. Did he question his past support of the pastor? Did he question what the pastor said when Obama was not in attendance? Did he question why so many Americans were enraged?” Ungar says.

 

“When Obama came forward and disconnected himself from the pastor, he did it with a lack of energy,” Ungar says. “It might have been heartfelt, but it was not passionate. The words were great, the conviction was not.”

 

Gilgoff says that there is a reason why the “conviction” may not have been there. “It would be difficult to overstate how important Wright was to Obama’s life. He brought him to the church, he brought him into the African-American community—which is very important for Obama, being that he has a white mother and an African father—he married Obama and his wife, baptized their children, and blessed his home,” Gilgoff explains.

 

Had Obama slammed Wright straightaway, Gilgoff says, “It would have seemed disingenuous if he had denounced Wright immediately. I don’t know how much damage that would have mitigated.”

 

Ungar maintains that the denouncement should have been swift and complete. “The damage was a result of Obama not acting fast, with clarity and concisely. In crisis communication the answer is always to answer fast and fully. Obama did not answer fully, and therefore the issue did not go away.”

 

“One has to ask the obvious question: why would Mr. Obama sit in this church and listen to anti-American invective over a 20 year period?” agrees Dr. Herb London, noted cultural critic and President of the Hudson Institute, a world-renowned think-tank in Washington, D.C.

“Did he handle it well? First, you have to understand for a considerable period of his life he had to embrace the views of this constituency in order to get elected to the Illinois legislature,” London explains. “Now he finds this is an albatross and a burden that stands in the way of his electoral success. But as anyone who has examined this matter dispassionately understands you can’t have it both ways. So there is either a full and complete repudiation or there is tacit acceptance of the positions taken by Reverend Wright. So far Mr. Obama has failed on both accounts.”

 

Ungar argues that the controversy has raised many questions for Americans. “The important question here is not about Pastor Wright, it is about Obama’s judgment. Especially with people he knows, how is his judgment? Many of the people he appoints or nominates will be people he knows. Can he make good decisions? Is he curious to dig deeper or just defend? He has a gift of communication; will he wield it wisely?” 

 

Public relations professional Peter Schwartz, President of Tuscon, AZ-based Schwartz and Company, Inc., contends that the key to Obama’s strength is his ability to keep himself composed. "While no candidate is perfect and some of his problems have been self-inflicted—such as the supposedly off-the-record ‘bitter’ comments—the reality is that through his communications Obama has been able to accomplish the most crucial tasks of all: he has kept his cool and he has kept his eye on the prize, which is winning the nomination,” Schwartz maintains. 

 

“Clinton superdelegates have now started to defect to Obama, which shows that he has handled the Wright controvery as well as could be expected,” Schwartz maintains. “While the Clinton camp has thrown everything possible at him, the reality is that he is still standing and that means he is a stronger candidate than many realized."

While he now has regained good standing following the flap, will Obama’s popularity ever reach pre-Wright heights? “I don’t know if he will ever regain that magic, that image of being above it all, that he could heal the rifts of race and culture,” Gilgoff states. “The Wright episode damaged the premise on which Obama’s campaign is based. This doesn’t mean that he can’t win the nomination or become President, but support for him won’t reach that same level of enthusiasm that there was before.”

 

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