A new Rasmussen telephone poll shows that only 30% of Americans believe that Barack Obama broke with Jeremiah Wright because of his disgust with the former pastor’s racially-charged statements.
Most—58%–say he denounced the Pastor for political convenience.
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Fifty-six percent (56%) say it’s at least somewhat likely that Obama “shares some of Pastor Wright’s controversial views about the United States.” That figure includes 26% who say it’s Very Likely Obama holds such views.
Mike Huckabee recently took a different perspective:
"His (Obama’s) campaign is not being derailed by his race, it’s being derailed by a person who doesn’t want him to prove that we have made great advances in this country," Huckabee told reporters.
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"Jeremiah Wright needs for Obama to lose so he can justify his anger, his hostile bitterness against the United States of America," Huckabee said.
The new poll seems to indicate that Huckabee was correct. Tellingly, 64% of African-American voters disagree with Wright’s view of the United States, evidence that his views are, at best, only marginally representative of the people he claims to speak for.
It’s clear to me that Obama should have broken with Wright long before the issue became an issue in the presidential campaign. Obama’s claim to have not known about Wright’s anti-American sermons and publications is simply not believable. Most American’s seem to agree.