As the United States considers a presidential candidate with a strict Islamic education in childhood, some Obama supporters see his religious upbringing as an advantage. They say that his unique heritage as both a Muslim and Christian will help bridge the cultural gap between western civilization and the fundamentalist Islamic militants who want to destroy it.
They may be on to something.
Barack Obama has been caught in a growing collection of lies, a fact which is taking more luster off of his presidential bid. The latest smoking gun comes in the form of damaging documents he claims to have never seen.
This particular lie is a function of questionnaires, meetings, and time, and therefore will not hold the public interest as much as a cherry tree. However it does hold our interest on Right Pundits as it further confirms that Obama is just another politician like most of the others.
Obama – McCain – Clinton (Polls)
Bumped.
Here are the latest general election polls for the possible matchups between Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton. We will update this thread with the latest polls each day, and you also check the comments for reader input.
Lots of state-by-state match-ups are here.
Barack Obama’s recent problems with his minister have taken a toll. You can see this show up in the daily tracking numbers from Rasmussen and Gallup compared with the data just a few days earlier. An overnight poll showed the 56% of Americans were less likely to vote Obama as a result of his polarizing church.
Right Pundits reminds our readers that Obama’s troubles were entirely expected. When a fresh face takes on a known candidate like John McCain, the unknown challenger always starts out with a public opinion advantage.
That is true whether we are talking about presidential contests, Senate races, or local mayoral elections. But when substance eventually gets inserted into the suit so that the public becomes aware of a candidate’s deficiencies, the challenger’s negatives go up and his long-term outlook goes correspondingly down.
Such is the case with Obama versus McCain. So if it were not for his pastor, something else would have surfaced about Obama that the public finds distasteful. And undoubtedly he will have more rough weeks ahead from stories we have not heard yet. Can he still win? Taking poetic license from a campaign cliche, maybe he can.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is even more known than John McCain. Her negatives are well-known and have little chance of moving higher from the news cycles. There will be no surprises from Hillary Clinton and yet she polls at least even with McCain. This is worrisome for Republicans, and a reminder that Hillary was always expected to be the more formidable candidate in the general election. Yes she can.
All of the latest polls are below.
Yes, that’s right folks. From the site that brought you the news about a New Zealander being molested by a Wombat, we here at RightPundits brings you the story of a man that claims he was molested by BigFoot when he was a youth in New Hampshire. Like the chap in New Zealand, Mr. Gene Morrill is also in trouble with the law, but in much bigger trouble: he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for molesting a child he met over the internet. it is widely believed that he trumped up the story to try to convince the judge that he was insane. The judge didn’t buy it.
The Fredericksburg Free Lance Star reports:
Rep. Heath Shuler (D) stated in a talk on Tuesday that Senator John McCain has blocked his immigration reform bill. This bill, known as the SAVE Act was meant to strengthen border security and force tougher requirements on employers to verify citizenship. Interestingly Shuler brought this bill in opposition to Pelosi who tried to stop it. My respect for Heath just went up, he doesn’t seem like the typical Democratic hack. Apparently Republicans wanted to use a parliamentary trick to force the bill to the floor for a vote and were about 30 votes shy. Shuler charges that McCain contacted several Republicans in the House and asked them not to sign the petitition that would force the vote. McCain’s staff denies that this happened.
Based on McCain’s past stances on illegal immigration, I’m tempted to believe Shuler here. I have never got the feeling we can trust this guy when it comes to cracking down on illegal immigration. He claims he has seen the light, but I’m not convinced that is true.
We will have a new member of our posting team. I will leave his moniker introduction to him for his first post.
He has been active in Maryland politics for many years, so I will have a collegue-in-crime from the People’s Repuclic of Maryland! 
He likes to do hot air ballooning, hiking kayaking, etc. and he does a lot of campaign strategizing, so his input should be very interesting!
He also has a cool webpage to check out: Politinotes, where you can get all your political cartoon humor and wax patriotic in note cards, and so forth. He has teamed up with a local political cartoonist for some cool stationery. There is plenty for lefties and righties too!
So give him a warm welcome when he checks in and we look forward to some more Maryland insight!
[Shameless promotion here] Also, look for the new ad appearing soon!
The Democratic Primary race will officially end when Senator Bob Casey endorses Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton will still win the state of Pennsylvania but will not be able to achieve the knock out blow that she needs to convince the super delegates that she is the only the parties’ only logical choice for the general election.
Senator Bob Casey is the son of the former 2-term Governor for Pennsylvania, also named Bob Casey. He was an incredibly popular, and conservative (at least for a Democrat), Governor who was best known for being shut out of the 1996 Democratic Primary because of his pro-life stance. His son shares the same views, which makes this endorsement surprising to say the least. However, the Casey brand name carries weight in Pennsylvania and will help Obama avoid being blown out.
Again, the race is officially finished when Senator Bob Casey makes it official and endorses Barack Obama.
***Update***
I failed to add the link. There is way too much multi-tasking in my life at this moment.
According to the Chicago Sun Times, the Obama campaign Foreign policy advisor, Greg Craig stated at a recent fundraiser that the issues surrounding Rev. Wright has been a low point in the campaign. And it ain’t over yet. According to the Sun Times, “NBC reported Thursday that bulletins published by Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s South Side included “anti-Israel” material and a piece calling Italians “garlic noses” and references to “White supremacists” who “run the U.S. government.”
And there’s going to be more headaches for Mr. Craig and the Obama campaign…
Preaching to the politics and theology of black empowerment to folks drawn from some of the inner-city neighborhoods that were supposed to be the epitomy of the down-trodden black man perpetually held down by the white-run “God-damned America,” Rev. Wright has had enough of living in the community and decided to join “the have’s” in an upscale home, funded by his former church through a series of questionable buy-back and loan schemes.
FOXNews
March 27, 2009
Jeff GoldblattThis was supposed to be the week that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. returned to the pulpit to preach for the first time since his anti-American sermons generated nationwide outrage and drew condemnation from his longtime parishioner, Barack Obama.
But, citing security concerns, Wright canceled his speaking engagements in Florida and Texas. A spokeswoman at his former church in Chicago said his schedule is pending.
A two-week FOX News investigation, however, has uncovered where Wright will be spending a good deal of his time in retirement, and it is a far cry from the impoverished Chicago streets where the preacher led his ministry for 36 years.
FOX News has uncovered documents that indicate Wright is about to move to a 10,340-square-foot, four-bedroom home in suburban Chicago, currently under construction in a gated community.
While it is not uncommon for an accomplished clergyman to live in luxury, Wright’s retirement residence is raising some questions.
“Some people think deals like this are hypocritical. Jeremiah Wright himself criticizes people from the pulpit for middle classism, for too much materialism,�? said Andrew Walsh, Associate Director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life with Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
“So he’s entitled to be tweaked here. So the question really is, how unusual is this? Somewhat unusual,�? he said.
According to documents obtained from the Cook County Register of Deeds, Wright purchased two empty lots in Tinley Park, Ill., from Chicago restaurant chain owner Kenny Lewis for $345,000 in 2004.
Documents show Wright sold the property to his church, Trinity United, in December 2006, with the proceeds going to a living trust shared with his wife, Ramah.
The sale price for the land was just under $308,000, about $40,000 less than Wright’s original purchase two years earlier.
Public records of the sale show Trinity initially obtained a $10 million bank loan to purchase the property and build a new house on the land.
But further investigation with tax and real estate attorneys showed that the church had actually secured a $1.6 million mortgage for the home purchase, and attached a $10 million line of credit, for reasons unspecified in the paperwork.
There is apparently nothing wrong with that, according to non-profit tax expert Jack Siegel of Charity Governance Consulting, who examined public documents FOX News obtained from the Cook County Register of Deeds and the Village of Tinley Park.
“At least looking at it from a public document standpoint, there’s clearly not a problem that jumps out or some sort of wrongdoing,�? Siegel said.
Siegel characterizes the transaction as unusual, however, because of the way Wright sold the property to Trinity and the way the deal was financed, with the attached $10 million line of credit.
Because churches are classified as private businesses, Trinity isn’t required to reveal its intended use for the line of credit. Nor, because it’s a non-profit entity, is it required to provide that information to the IRS.
A spokesman for ShoreBank, the Chicago-based financial institution that secured mortgages for the loans, said the deals were aboveboard.
Wright did not respond to repeated calls for comment, and Trinity United refused to discuss the specifics of the home it is building for him and the way the deal was financed.
The church referred FOX News to its denominational headquarters in Cleveland, which provided a statement of support:
“It is customary and appropriate in many Christian denominations, including the United Church of Christ, for local churches to offer housing provisions for retiring clergy, especially in cases where pastors have served long-term pastorates. We support efforts by our 5,700 local churches to ensure that retiring pastors and spouses have continuing housing, adequate pension and health care, as an expression of our continuing appreciation for their years of service. Each local UCC congregation is free to honor a retiring pastor in ways it feels most appropriate to address the needs of that clergyperson’s circumstances,�? wrote the Rev. J. Bennett Guess, spokesman for UCC’s national office.
“This is about how these kinds of churches work,�? notes Walsh. “These pastors who made big successful churches are real valuable commodities. Is it morally wrong? Well, Protestants don’t have the idea that their religious leaders should live modestly or aesthetically. We’re not talking Buddhist monks or Catholic priests here. There’s no tradition that says they have to live poor.�?
Tradition at Trinity United centers on a congregation that’s unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian, according to the church’s website. There are also no apologies from the church for the home it’s building for its former senior pastor, who nurtured a religious empire that grew to have more than 8,000 congregants.
In the words of a SNL church-lady, “well ain’t that special?”
Wright was wrong about America, and Wright is wrong about his role as a retired pastor. Living in a 1.6 million dollar home along with a secured $10 million dollar loan account, paid by the working poor and the elderly that he served is not only wrong, it is immoral and corrupt.
Nobody denies a pastor a decent life in retirement. The problem is that Rev. Wright has joined the ranks of all those white televangelists who used their pulpits to live in luxury.
