It’s the Economy, Not Wright

The Pew Research Center has a new report out showing that the Wright controversy has not seriously harmed Obama’s standing with voters who already supported him. What’s interesting is that, even though a significant percentage of voters polled said they were “personally offended” by the quoted snippets from Wright’s sermons, and over a third said they thought less of Obama because of his association with Wright, he still enjoys a hefty advantage over Hillary Clinton for the nomination, largely because of the way he handled the situation:

However, the Wright controversy does not appear to have undermined support for Obama’s candidacy. The latest nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted March 19-22 among 1,503 adults, finds that Obama maintains a 49% to 39% advantage over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, which is virtually unchanged from than the 49% to 40% lead he held among Democrats in late February. Obama and Clinton continue to enjoy slight advantages over John McCain in general election matchups among all registered voters.

The new polling suggests that the Wright affair has not hurt Obama’s standing, in part because his response to the controversy has been viewed positively by voters who favor him over Clinton. Obama’s handling of the Wright controversy also won a favorable response from a substantial proportion of Clinton supporters and even from a third of Republican voters.

More than eight-in-ten supporters of Obama (84%) who have heard about the controversy over Wright’s sermons say he has done an excellent or good job of dealing with the situation. Reactions from Clinton supporters, and Republicans, are on balance negative; however, 43% of Clinton voters and a third of Republican voters who have heard about the affair express positive opinions about Obama’s handling of the situation.

Obama, meanwhile, is focusing on the man he’ll be running against in the general election:

Presidential candidate Barack Obama, largely ignoring his Democratic rival for now, ridiculed likely Republican nominee John McCain on Wednesday for offering “not one single idea” to help hard-pressed homeowners facing foreclosure.

“George Bush called this the ownership society, but what he really meant was ‘you’re-on-your-own’ society,” Obama told a town hall meeting here, tying McCain to a president whose popularity is low. “John McCain apparently wants to continue this.”

What a dead-on description of U.S.-style capitalism!

The New York Times has a good editorial today about the foreclosure crisis and what the federal government’s responsibilities are to Americans caught up in it:

With foreclosures surging, the last thing the nation needs is another government-hosted meeting where mortgage lenders pledge once again to do their utmost to help distressed borrowers stay in their homes — and then go back to the business of foreclosure.

Yet, a meeting and a round of pledges is exactly what Senator John McCain called for on Tuesday, as if the country had not been down that fruitless road already. The real core of his speech was his argument against government action to help dig distressed homeowners — or the country — out of the mortgage mess.

Mr. McCain’s talk therapy will not ease, let alone end, the worst foreclosure crisis since the Depression or the financial crisis that has erupted in its wake. But worse yet is what it says about the presumptive Republican nominee’s view of the economy and the government’s responsibility to protect and help its citizens.

His suggestion that federal aid might wrongly reward “undeserving” homeowners sounded both mean-spirited and economically naïve. And then there is the double standard. He seemed less concerned about the government helping reckless bankers, endorsing its role in preventing the bankruptcy of Bear Stearns.

No one has ever proposed helping real estate speculators. And the senator’s language obscures the reality that most troubled homeowners did not get into trouble by themselves. Lenders, aided and abetted by bankers and do-nothing regulators, lured many borrowers into overly complex, ultimately unaffordable loans. Mr. McCain also failed to grasp that the foreclosure problem has gone far beyond the issue of the deserving and undeserving. What is on the line now is the health of the economy, including the viability of the financial system: Helping troubled borrowers stay in their homes would help the banks by reducing defaults and foreclosures.

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