
 |
|
Nov. 6, 2009
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How
to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Nov. 5, 2009
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking
Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker
With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater?
With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change
With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Oct. 29, 2009
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our
Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
JWisdom.com Why what we wear
impacts who we are
With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love
With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks
With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really?
By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A
Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious
By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things
By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices
By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 15, 2009
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
|
| |
Jewish World Review
June 20, 2008
/ 17 Sivan 5768
A little trouble with the image
By
Wesley Pruden
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Barack Obama got the polling bump he expected when he clinched the Democratic nomination, but the bump only bumped him to the edge of a shallow but inconvenient ditch.
A new poll by the Zogby organization for Reuters finds that John McCain, whose campaign is having trouble getting on track, has nevertheless pulled within five points of Sen. Obama. This is a gain of three points over the past month. He leads John McCain 47 to 42 percent, close to the margin of error, which means the two presumptive nominees have moved into a tie, more or less.
Tightening poll numbers, subject to fluctuations every time the wind blows, the mouse squeaks and the dog barks, don't mean much until after Labor Day. But the damage done to Mr. Obama's saintly image by events he seems unable to control is something real to worry about. Worse, he's having his first lovers' quarrel with his camp followers of press and tube.
Reporters were told this week to expect less access to the candidate; photographers especially are poison. The camp followers are still miffed because the Obama campaign dispatched his plane with reporters aboard back to Washington while he, without telling them, slipped away to stay in Chicago to chat up Hillary Clinton. Several bureau chiefs and the Associated Press accused him of deliberate deception.
An incident in Detroit, where Obama aides asked a young woman in a Muslim head scarf to step out of a photograph to avoid the appearance of any association however remote with Muslims, threatens to mark the end of the affair between the candidate and the press. Or at least the late recognition that the object of affection all sublime snores, burps and blows his nose just like everybody else. The Obama campaign was founded on the proposition that the senator is without a marketer's "image." Now we see that Barack Obama works to project a marketing image just like all the other pols. It's enough to break a lover's heart.
The Obama campaign tried to fix the Detroit damage with grovels, apologies and promises. "It doesn't reflect the orientation of the campaign," a spokeswoman told reporters. "I do not believe that mistake will be made again." The word apparently never made it downstream. Obama aides subsequently barred cameras at a rally of black preachers and community leaders, apparently in fear that he might be surrounded by too many black and brown faces. Earlier his campaign declined to identify several religious figures with whom he met in Chicago, and the preachers were directed to leave by a side door to avoid reporters and photographers.
Photographers were definitely not kept out - they were urged in - when Mr. Obama met with several retired military officers to suggest that he is, too, tough enough to be the commander in chief. He wore his flag pin on his lapel, and flags fluttered everywhere. There might even have been a cross somewhere in the folds of the bunting. The Democrats have clearly rediscovered God, generals and the flag. A claque of adoring ladies on the television program "The View" continued the reconstruction of Michelle Obama, to display her as patriotic not proud, soft not squishy, warm not hot. "Mrs. Obama," wrote an admiring columnist for the New York Times, "went on [television] ... to combat the notion that she is a little too authentic to be the first lady, while Mrs. McCain did it to undercut the image that she is too fake."
Managing an image is hardly new to the Obama campaign. That's what modern presidential politics is all about, and the Obama campaign usually does it very, very well. When his campaign was struggling with Hillary Clinton in North Carolina, the campaign worked hard to see that white women, waving tiny American flags, always formed a reassuring backdrop for the photographers.
The McCain campaign does this, too, just not as well. Advance men, hired to make the fakery look authentic, carefully choose the faces that surround the candidate. But Barack Obama was first sold as a politician who was above stooping to the level of everyone else. He has to be careful now not to be seen exploiting "identity politics," the fashionable euphemism for "racial politics." When the going gets tough, and the tough get going, it won't be easy.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
Wesley Pruden Archives
© 2007 Wesley Pruden
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Michael Barone
Dave Barry
Tony Blankley
Andy Borowitz
David Broder
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
John Fund
Frank J. Gaffney
Lloyd Garver
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Lewis Grossberger
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Laura Ingraham
Cheri Jacobus Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ed Koch
Ch. Krauthammer
Michael Ledeen
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Dick Morris
Bill O'Reilly
Jim Mullen
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Jonathan Rauch
Celia Rivenbark
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Pat Sajak
Debra J. Saunders
Culture Shlock
Roger Simon
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
Lisa Benson
John Branch
Gary Brookins
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holber
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Ranan R. Lurie
Jimmy Margulies
Rick McKee
Michael Ramirez
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Ed Stein
Danna Summers
John Trever
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters

How 2
Lori Borgman
The Savvy Consumer
Elder matters
Fixit
Dr. Peter Gott
GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
Richard Lederer
Tech Maven
Every Monday Matters
Nutrition Myths
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
How Stuff Works
|