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Week of 9.12.08
Transcript: Obama in Danger? & The Evangelical AgendaMore From NOW:
Obama in Danger? | Is the Evangelical Vote in Play? |
What Obama Needs To Do in the Next 60 Days
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Candidates Meet at Columbia |
Debating Palin's Candidacy | Feedback Forum
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BRANCACCIO: Ok, if Barack Obama is having trouble closing the deal, it turns out John McCain has more work to do with one of his key constituencies. In the days followed the introduction to the country of McCain's running mate, there was a sense among his supporters and the media that McCain now has the crucial evangelical Christian vote locked up. But that's not what we're hearing from an influential and deeply conservative religious figure. Harry Jackson is senior pastor of Hope Christian church outside of Washington, D.C....and man who's had frequent dealings with Republican power brokers.Pastor Jackson, how are you holding up this election season? JACKSON: Well, it's been a little bit lengthy. But we're making it. BRANCACCIO: You know, once upon a time evangelical Christians were seen by some as almost like a division in the Republican army. I mean, was there ever a point that you considered yourself less a—a man of the cloth and more kind of a lieutenant in the—in a GOP division? JACKSON: Well, actually, yes. In 2006 as the Marriage Amendment was getting ready to come forward at the Senate I was in a meeting. And I told folks in that meeting that I had started aligning with the religious right, if you will, because I felt like the Democrats had treated us like people in an adulterous relationship. You know, they show up at midnight. They knock on your door. They want what they want when they want and how they want it. But never take you out for dinner. You never get flowers. You're never treated like someone who's really respected. And I said to them, "You know what? The same way I was treated by the Democrats I'm now being treated by Republicans." We get trotted out when somebody needs for us to come to the front lines. And then they say, "Okay, that's enough. Go back in your box." And—it's time for a massive change for how we, the people of faith engage in the culture and in the political process. BRANCACCIO: Was there a time any point in this campaign where you wrestled at all with the notion of maybe voting for someone like Barack Obama? JACKSON: Well, yes. I have wrestled with that quite a bit. Because you could say—one could say that the original sin in America is the sin of racism, not the sin, if you wanted to call it that, of abortion or same-sex marriage. And—if you look at this whole dynamic of the glass ceiling that Barack Obama could follow through with or break through—it could be righting a tremendous wrong. BRANCACCIO: And a lot of ink was spelled in the media in— JACKSON: Yeah. BRANCACCIO: —the spring especially about evangelical Christians. Some of them really gonna vote this time for Obama. There are recent polls suggesting (here we are in September) that this is changing. What about your view on this? You moving a little away from Barack Obama? You moving more toward—Senator McCain? JACKSON: You know what? I—I am. But—but I'm gonna be very transparent with you h—in this interview. The guy who goes after an endorsement of ministers who I happen to know personally and then, because he doesn't understand them, throws them under the bus and say, you know, "They're too extreme for me," is someone you gotta watch a little bit. BRANCACCIO: This is John McCain— JACKSON: John Mc— BRANCACCIO: —especially in the case of—Pastor Hagee. JACKSON: Yeah, exactly. Until he got his running mate, Sarah Palin, who is really a social conservative, I was concerned. On the other hand, Barack Obama talks very well. And as an individual—I think that he has a—a tremendous heart. Seems to have compassion. My concern about him is—will the machine, the Democratic machine versus the Republican machine, will it really do the right thing? So I'm leaning more toward McCain at this point. Because of the addition of Palin. And but I'm gonna tell you that I don't think the party line is the answer. And I'm going to encourage all kinds of people of faith to make their own decision based on their faith, and I'm not just saying this because of 501C3 things. Um, I can endorse outside of the pulpit, I can't go back to church and tell 'em "vote this way". But I think folks have got to come to grips with which of these moral imperatives they really believe in. And over time I think we are going to start marshalling an army of folks who are doing things based on heart felt biblical values as opposed to having the pied piper of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party leaders around by the nose or however we're being led. BRANCACCIO: Now I'm aware that at Hope Christian Church you don't do exit polls on the way out of the service, on the way to the coffee and doughnuts. But what are you hearing? I mean—the Sarah Palin appointment—must have gotten a lot of attention among the people that you see on Sunday. JACKSON: Well, it does. But lemme describe my church a little bit. Sixty-five percent African-American or so. A lot of dark-skinned immigrants, 22 different nationalities. BRANCACCIO: And pretty young, I think, your congregation. JACKSON: Lot—yes, yes. And it is. And it's white and black and Hispanic all mixed together. But—a—a black-oriented crowd. Many of those people—I'd say 75, 80 percent are absolutely pro-Obama. And they're pro-Obama not just because of his persona and his faith—stance. He's been reaching out toward us. But I think they felt like my earlier—illustration about this adulterous relationship—they really are saying, "Look, I'm tired of you guys making us promises and promise after promise. And you never follow-through anyway. So I can't really believe that your moral persuasion or your moral approach is really all that moral. You're a pola—politician. You're political. And maybe I need to give someone else a chance." So the younger people, and I've had people come up to me and challenge me. And they'll say, "What really is the difference?" And they say, "Obama is going to do X, Y, and Z. And these guys are gonna promise and not deliver anyway. So what are you really telling me? The thing that you're holding up as the big principle you're protecting is not gonna get acted on." And they harken back to look at what happened with the Marriage Amendment. That's a challenging thought. And— BRANCACCIO: The Marriage Amendment never got passed into the—into law, into the Constitution. JACKSON: Exactly. Even after all these people vote for Bush because they think he's gonna protect marriage or la-la-la-la-la. And then what did he do? He used his influence to go after Social Security, of all things. And—they just didn't get it. And then Katrina happened. And people began to see incident after incident after incident of hypocrisy. People of faith—someone said, "Faith is blind. But we ain't dumb." So—I'm—so that—that's the—the issue I'm dealing with. BRANCACCIO: Senator Obama's pretty good about talking in the language of faith. He said, quote, "We do what we do because God is with us". Must warm your heart when you hear that. JACKSON: Well, it does warm my heart. Because I have a deep seated conviction that when people like Senator Obama begin to talk about faith and rally others to talk about faith, it—it's sort of like standing on—on a river bank. You get on that slippery slope long enough, you're gonna slip in. And—so I think he's really has a—a passion for faith. And I don't agree with a lot of things that he says about some of these—major issues. But I believe he is a sincere man. And he's making it okay for the discussion to happen on both sides of the aisle. That's got to advance our cause long-term as long as people like me are willing to say, "You know what? This is a democracy. This is a process. And if people choose differently than I choose, I don't have the right to—declare that they've now been excommunicated from the faith, etcetera, etcetera." We're gonna have to work this thing out—presenting our argument to the culture. And then, prayerfully—influencing—the nation. BRANCACCIO: You know, Obama gets to Saddleback Church out in California, the I guess almost legendary Rick Warren, the minister there— JACKSON: A great man. BRANCACCIO: —holds a—a forum for both candidates on issues of faith— JACKSON: Yep. BRANCACCIO: —and what do you think? Obama didn't do so well? JACKSON: I didn't think he did so well. Because it—it's more of a style issue. The McCain that we saw at that event was clear. He was upbeat. He was energetic. His answers were concise. Bing, bing, bing, bing. And he went down the check list of many evangelicals. Obama, on the other hand, very brilliant man. Began to deal with nuanced answers. And the nuance that he gave made many people who were watching think, "He's not really one of us." I mean, he—well, o—and then the other side and this and that and the other. So he—he really didn't play toward the audience that was watching out there in middle America, faith America. They basically said, "Oh. Too—too much of an intellectual concept of faith. McCain, more tactile, substantive." BRANCACCIO: Did Obama ever have a chance though? I mean, Obama is pro choice. And— JACKSON: Yeah. BRANCACCIO: —clearly at Rick Warren's church that's not gonna win you brownie points. So he went in— JACKSON: No. BRANCACCIO: —you kind of almost expected him to be—chewed up over there. JACKSON: Well, he—I agree. I—I think what he's looking for, and—and I think he's wise in doing this, he had nothing to do but win in that re—regard. And that is if there are 60 million evangelical voters out there, if you can peel back two, three percent in a very, very tight race, you've done yourself a very big service. I think he wasn't passionate enough, the people on the religious right would have done better by just—just saying what he believes, and spending more time being very specific about here's how I'm gonna make sure that abortions are not going to happen in America. I believe women should have these choices. But I want to do this. I wanna do that. I wanna do the other BRANCACCIO: So I'm hearing you say that there's still another cycle going on that could lead people to take another hard look at both John McCain's candidacy and Barack Obama's candidacy before the election? It's not set in stone yet? JACKSON: I don't think it's set in stone. Remember that it's been Obama's to lose, in my opinion. People are tired of the direction the nation has gone. Change is a powerful message. So if McCain and Palin continue to reach out for us and include us in the process of their campaigning, I think that they could possibly win. But Obama in—in the wisdom of his campaigning I think could peel back just enough votes to get him over the finish line. So this is gonna be one of those things that you're gonna have to watch to the very end. And—but my prayer—really is that this is a beginning of a redefinition in the overall American political process. And that it won't be said that one party is the faith party and the other one is not in future elections. BRANCACCIO: Harry Jackson, Jr., senior pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Maryland, and author of The Truth in Black and White. Thank you very much. JACKSON: Thank you, David. BRANCACCIO: Barack Obama has been amping up his criticism of the McCain ticket. In speeches this week, Obama called the McCain-Palin way, the same old Bush administration approach, like putting lipstick on a pig he said. A McCain surrogate took umbrage saying that was a reference to Sarah—lipstick on a pit bull—Palin and called for an apology. But it's not just about snappy rhetoric, it's about connecting with emotions...so says a scientist who studies how we decide to vote. Drew Weston is a clinical psychologist at Emory University and a campaign strategist who's given advice to the Obama campaign. He says Obama better figure this out in a hurry. BRANCACCIO: Drew Westen, how are you? WESTEN: Doing fine, thanks. BRANCACCIO: Senator Obama. That man gives an amazing speech with soaring rhetoric, a lot of it appealing to emotions. WESTEN: Yes, he does. I think Obama, though, what you see is you really—we've seen, you know, John Edwards talked in the last election about the two Americas. I think this year we've seen the two Obamas. We've seen the one who does that amazing soaring rhetoric that just brings tears to your eyes. He's the one on the stump. And then you see the other one who shows up at debates and at interviews—and sounds much more like Michael Dukakis with the—with the rambling dispassionate nuanced—descriptions of 12-point policy— BRANCACCIO: Ooh, Michael Dukakis, he sounds like. That's a—a bit of a low blow, my friend. WESTEN: I even like Obama. But where they make the mistake all the time is that they hide their values in the fine print of their policies. Republicans always start with their value statements. They come out and say, "This is what I believe." And then they say some words about what they're gonna do about it if they ever get there. And then they conclude with something that is—is, again, emotionally powerful and compelling. Democrats almost always start the other way around. BRANCACCIO: Stop giving out the PowerPoint presentations, the public policy speeches, the statistics? That's what you're saying? WESTEN: Yeah, I'm saying if you wanna win people's hearts and minds, you better start with their hearts 'cause otherwise they're not gonna care very much what's on your mind. I mean, if you look at the data on what predicts people's voting behavior in presidential elections, the top two predictors. One is how do people feel about the parties and their principles. And the second is what do they feel about this candidate. What's their gut-level feeling? Our brains as voters are primate brains. They are mammalian brains. You know animals have been driven for—for millions of years, pulled towards things that they have good reason to—to believe, based on prior experience, are good for them and their families. And—pulled away from, or they want to fight things that are bad for them and their families. BRANCACCIO: Governor Sarah Palin, I was actually in the room at the convention when she gave the speech that speech was right to the gut. WESTEN: It was brilliant. It was absolutely brilliant. Brilliantly delivered. Not only was she funny, not only was she folksy, but she also—she could attack with the—the biggest smile on her face so that you had no idea when you had—when you had just been shot. So she's a—she's a—I'd say she's an excellent marksman. BRANCACCIO: Already even the Republicans are trying to frame Sarah Palin as the barracuda. How do you stop the barracuda? WESTEN: Well, the—the way you stop it is the way they didn't stop it. And that is that you always inoculate against something like this. One of the most basic rules of persuasion is get there first. Here's an unknown product. No one's heard anything about her. They had five days before she spoke to start telling a story about, one, that this was an incredibly reckless cynical choice by—by John McCain. And what does it say about his judgment? Second, Barack Obama should have done this so easily and said, "What a hypocrite. This man's been attacking me for lack of national security experience for the last three months and he picks a woman whose only national poli—national security experience is that she lives near—near Russia and that she got a passport two years ago? I don't think so." BRANCACCIO: That would have been coming out swinging. Is that something that the Obama campaign is really good at? WESTEN: Well, it's not something they're good at, but it's something they better get—that—better get better at, or they're not gonna win this election. BRANCACCIO: Yeah, because you're just talking about going into the Sarah Palin speech. It's now like a week and a half later, you know, well, what's the response here? WESTEN: We'll just now starting to hear a trickle of response. This is the kind of—of situation we've seen so many times with Democratic campaigns where—the Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are playing checkers. You know, the Republicans are thinking six moves ahead. BRANCACCIO: And you think the election's in the balance at this stage? WESTEN: I'll tell you what—where this election is really gonna hang in the balance now, I think, is in the debates. When he talks about the economy, if he gives one of these long, drawn out answers on the economy, he's gonna lose people. If he starts and said, "Imagine this," if he's asked a question about the economy, and his first response is—is, "You know, I want to see the words, "Made in America," again." And then he says what he's gonna do about trade. What he's just done is he's brought everybody in. And everybody hears that and they are nodding. It also addresses—the whole effort that the McCain campaign and more broadly, the right wing has—has made to—to—to—project him as other, as really not one of us, as un-American, And if he—if he would simply start with something like that, it's a very different kind of—very different kind of answer. BRANCACCIO: There is also the vice-presidential debate. And this is gonna be a conundrum for Joe Biden, what strategy to use. WESTEN: The reality is that Sarah Palin is a formidable, formidable speaker. And I bet she's gonna be a formidable debater. She will not know policy like Joe—Joe Biden does policy. But she'll have those punchy lines. And I think that Democrats should get the American people ready for the fact that this woman is a scrapper. She's funny. She's gonna be every bit as—as tough as you can expect. BRANCACCIO: Are you telling Joe Biden to be really aggressive in that debate? WESTEN: I certainly wouldn't recommend that he—that he—that he start taking swings at her or that he gets up in her face. I don't think those would be good ideas. But I think what he's got to say from the start is, "You know—governor, I'm gonna treat you like an American, and I'm gonna treat you like—like a peer. And I'm gonna show respect for you that way, but—but—the gloves are gonna come off—with me, just like the gloves'll come off with you. Because this is—you know, the American people need to know where we stand," and I would—I would put it on the table. I think you want to—you want to make this stuff conscious, so people are thinking about that. BRANCACCIO: —a Democrat is gonna do that. WESTEN: This is, I think, one of the central things the Democrats have to understand if they want to win back the hearts and minds of the American people is that you can take almost any position that you want on almost any issue, as long as it's not the fetal position. And Democrats are constantly in a defensive crouch. if you don't put out your principles, and speak them with conviction, people look at you and they say, "You know, these people are weak and—and lacking in conviction. I don't think I'll vote for them." And that's the biggest danger for the Democrats. So if, you know, if I were, for example, Barack Obama and I wanted to talk about—about health care. The last thing I would say is, I believe in universal health care. You start out instead by saying, "I believe in a family doctor for every family." And it says exactly the same thing, but it does it in a way that evokes completely different associations in your head. Or another—another way with—way you can talk about it is you can say, "I believe that people who work for a living ought to be able to take their kids to the doctor when they're sick." And that's the difference between me and John McCain. Simple statement, it's a statement of values and it takes—it takes—an American value, which is hard work, that the—that the right has appropriated. And it—you know, they've taken hard work, responsibility, patriotism, discipline, all that stuff is now owned by—owned and operated by the Republican Party in their messaging. Democrats never talk that way. And this is one thing that Obama has done really well. When he speaks about absent fathers, he talks about, "You need to take responsibility for your kids, and that's means turn off that television and reading to them instead." That's the kind of language the Democrats need to use, to remind Americans, you know what? Democrats actually have really mainstream values, but they just never talk about them. BRANCACCIO: There's a big argument for going quite negative, though. WESTEN: I would never attack someone's character. I'd never urge a candidate to attack someone's character, unless that person is showing a character flaw that the American people should know about. I would, for example, go after John McCain for saying he's a maverick, you know, he was for the Bush—against the Bush tax cuts on principle, because you don't cut rich people's taxes in times of war. And then when he wanted to win the nomination, he said, "I will never let the Democrats roll back the Bush tax cut." Well, you know what? That is an issue of character. It's an issue of, is he putting country first? Or is he putting personal ambition first? BRANCACCIO: And you think that Barack Obama's campaign is constitutionally capable of becoming that aggressive? WESTEN: Well, what I think that they need to do is to—is to remember that so much of elections are won in the stories that are told. You know, you don't let someone tell a story that you're un—patriotic, without swinging back immediately. The Republican Convention, until the last day, was like a hate fest. It was defining this group as them, and that group as them, and this group as them. And then there's us, with small town values. Us with good American values. And he could so easily have gone on the air afterwards and said, "You know, this is the difference between the two parties." BRANCACCIO: Obama could have. WESTEN: Obama could have. He could have said, "The difference between the two parties is, I believe that what a patriot does is to unite Americans. And they seem to think that it's patriotic to divide American against American. That's not what you're gonna see under an Obama administration. We've seen enough of us versus them. We are all Americans. We pledge allegiance to the same flag. And on November fourth, I want you to renew that pledge, that we all learned when we were children." BRANCACCIO: Now I'll say, as the Obama campaign is jotting all this down as we speak, Drew Westen, clinical psychologist and author of The Political Brain, thank you very much. WESTEN: Pleasure. BRANCACCIO: And that's it for NOW. From New York, I'm David Brancaccio. We'll see you next week. |
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