In the past of couple of weeks, the whole democratic primary has been heavily shadowed by Barack Obama’s Pastor, Reverend Wright’s scandal. His angry remarks including the infamous “God damn America” were circulated around, specifically on YouTube, and widely played almost everywhere, from cable news to talks shows. Analysts were asking why Obama did not condemn his pastor. Some were judiciously assessing the damage to his campaign and some others, elevated the story to the level of a Greek tragedy in which Wright was subconsciously sabotaging the life and the career of his pseudo-stepson, Barack!
Amidst this festival of talking points’ repetition, one probable and rather obvious hypothesis, was apparently missed unanimously by political analysts. They failed to notice the possibility of an ingenious scheme by Obama’s campaign to design and/or fuel the whole scandal.
Like most of the conspiracy theories, it might sound crazy at first but think about it! Let’s explore the case like a professional detective by asking “Who benefits the most from the scandal?” or “What would have Obama gained or lost, had he designed the whole drama?”
Barack Obama is a highly educated politician with an almost flawless record. He is a young, handsome, impeccably eloquent and extremely charismatic, natural-born speaker who is supposed to run against an old, boring grandpa-veteran who can hardly put three sentences together, before putting everybody to sleep (let’s face it, today’s McCain is nothing like the liberal maverick he was, a decade ago). Besides, Obama’s views on economy, Iraq’s war and healthcare, to name a few, are broadly shared among Americans while those of his opponent, have been considered the continuation of the Bush’s immensely unpopular policies. Even though the magical talent of democrats in losing winnable elections shouldn’t be overlooked, it is highly unlikely that the smart, resourceful and magnetic Obama would fail to become United States next president unless…is there any way Obama could lose this election?
Well, there was one actually. According to most experts, he has been plagued by a major exposed weakness and that was his Arabic middle name, Hussein, coupled with the fact that his father was a Muslim and that he attended a “Madrasah” while he was living in Indonesia! I understand that it is shameful to even consider a mere nonconformity as a major flaw but setting idealism aside, give all those above-mentioned information to an average American while running the Bin-Laden’s picture on the background and voila, you have made yourself a winning strategy!
Stupid as it sounds; it’s not easy to do well in a presidential election when your fist name was Saddam’s last and your last name rhymes with Bin Laden’s first! (I refer all who consider the judgment of an average American underestimated in the aforementioned analogy, to poor Howard Dean’s high pitch scream and its catastrophic effect on his candidacy!)
In fact, the plan had been already started. Emphasizing on his middle name, showing Obama’s picture in traditional African outfit wearing a turban, has- according to polls- persuaded a good percentage of Americans that he was a Muslim! and to many, Muslim, terrorists, what’s the difference?!!
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if he wanted to be the next president, he would have been in desperate need to defuse this eminent threat, as soon as possible.
Back to the scandal, let’s first explore what he gained from the reverend Wright scandal?
At the moment, almost every single American, even remotely interested in politics, knows that Barak Hussein Obama is not a Muslim! They all know that despite his middle name, he is a Christian and not only in name, but he has regularly and consistently attended church, over a period of two decades. They clearly know that he has a personal and spiritual mentor name pastor Jeremiah Wright and that his children have been baptized in a Christian church by this pastor. Mission sort of accomplished, huh? (Bush has ruined this phrase forever, hasn’t he?!)
What else Barak could do to keep it going? Well, he could postpone rebutting his pastor, prolonging the whole upheaval for couple more weeks, proving that he is not quite unhappy with Americans’ brains being engraved with the fact that Obama is a Christian.
The incident helped him to substantially reinforce his weakest side; making any future republican attack from this side, practically hopeless and most importantly, he did it without spending even a dime! It even granted him the opportunity to give a historic lecture on “Race in America” that increased his popularity among young educated Americans, strengthen their robust support. Last but not least, Obama’s refusal to condemn Wright in public, accentuated his image as an honest and different politician and not a regular opportunist! (I’m talking to you Hilary! Remembering your grandfather’s memories of teaching you how to shoot, right before Pennsylvania’s primary was rather disgusting. Though not as despicable as John Kerry’s appearance on TV with a hunting rifle and a goose-hunting hat! talking about hunting down Bin Laden as if he was a migrating bird, for heaven’s sake!!!!)
Finally, let’s analyze “things Barack lost in Wright’s Fire”?
Surprisingly, almost nothing! To begin with, the democratic primary had been practically finished long before the scandal. Weeks before Pennsylvania, it would have been mathematically very improbable for Hillary to be able to fill the delegate gap, even if she had won all the remaining contents.
Besides, Obama’s support base has been mostly consist of either African-American voters (who, no matter what, would vote for the only eligible black candidate in the history of the presidential race), or white educated middle class (who are supposed to be intelligent enough to see through this phony drama).
And in practice, he finished the Pennsylvania much better than the anticipations, won Guam and North Carolina and almost tied in Indiana (the state in which he was projected to be lose badly due to the large population of blue collar workers). Could anybody forecast a better result for him, had the scandal not happened?!
The whole reverend Wright Scandal was either one of the most brilliantly executed PR maneuver in the history of the presidential elections, or Obama is just one of the luckiest men alive! Personally, I won’t go with the latter.
