Barack Obama could be hurt in the general election by controversies that have done little damage to him in the primaries, including recent dust-ups over abortion and the real nature of his political views.
With liberals dominating the Democratic primary process, Obama has emerged largely unscathed from fire storms such as the one over his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who exhorted his flock, “God damn America!” But with tens of millions of moderates poised to vote in the general election, such controversies could come back to haunt Obama.
“He’s basically creating a mosaic of things that we’ll be able to pick at,” said Republican strategist Jason Roe. “We can define him in the general election the way we defined John Kerry as being somehow out of the mainstream.”
The GOP is particularly eager to remind voters that Obama called his grandmother a “typical white person” because she feared and stereotyped blacks.
“Also, he wouldn’t put his hand on his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance, he wouldn’t wear an American flag lapel pin, and his wife said the campaign marked the first time she was proud to be an American,” Roe said. “I mean, this is basically a story line that is writing itself.”
Although recent polls suggest the Wright controversy has not done major damage to Obama among the Democratic electorate, it could loom large if Obama advances to the general election.
“The biggest mistake partisans and political analysts make is in assuming that the nomination voting is predictive of the general election voting,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “These are two dramatically different electorates in both parties.”
For example, moderates in the general election might be put off by a voter group’s questionnaire that Obama filled out in 1996, when he was running for the state Senate in Illinois. He took dogmatically liberal positions on gun control, the death penalty and abortion. Although Obama’s handwriting is on the questionnaire, his campaign now says it was filled out by a staffer.
Republicans also plan to make hay out of Obama’s remark Saturday that if his daughters became pregnant, “I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
The GOP is also gathering string to use against Hillary Clinton in the event she secures the nomination. Operatives plan to remind voters of former President Bill Clinton’s scandal-plagued past, including his impeachment, which has not been much of an issue in the primary.
In addition, there are plans to make an issue of Hillary Clinton’s credibility by resurrecting her scandals from the 1990s, including Filegate and Travelgate. Clinton gave her opponents more fodder last month by falsely claiming she came under sniper fire in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
