By now, according to Rasmussen, 66 percent of voters say they have read, seen, or heard news stories about Jeremiah Wright’s comments.
Wright has been Barack Obama's Pastor for 20 years and Obama referred to him on Fox as "like an Uncle to me".
For those reading this that haven't seen Obama's pastor of 20 years, and his "
God Damn America" rant, it can be found at
YouTube and is shown above.
Barack Obama has claimed he was never present during his Pastor's rants.
Back to the
Rasmussen report, most voters, 56 percent, said Wright’s comments made them less likely to vote for Obama. That figure includes 44 percent of Democrats. Just 11 percent of voters say they are more likely to vote for Obama because of Wright’s comments.
The story became big news in the past several days and has had at least a temporary impact on public perceptions of Obama. Last Thursday, 52% of voters nationwide had a favorable opinion of Obama. That figure has fallen to 47% on Monday (see recent daily results). In recent days, Obama has also lost ground to John McCain in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
Tomorrow Barack Obama is
planning to give a speech on "the larger issue of race in this campaign," he told reporters in Monaca, PA.
Worrisome for Obama supporters is that, although he is denouncing Wright's specific words in the clip, he is trying to defend the man himself by making comments like,
"The caricature that’s being painted of him is not accurate."
Nobody put those words in Jeremiah Wright's mouth. Nobody dubbed them in.
He said them and Barack Obama is losing ground in favorability already, in the short amount of time this story has been on fire in the media and
blogosphere, as the poll quoted above shows, and until he gets out in front of this and stops making excuses and stops trying to "explain" those comments of his pastor and simply distances himself as far and as fast as possible, those Rasmussen numbers and well as other polling organizations figures, are showing what the trend will be.
Downward.
