Last week held some good news for Sen. Barack Obama.
The Pew Research Center poll said Obama’s speech helped him successfully weathered the firestorm over Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s incendiary comments. The poll said most people thought he handled the controversy well.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice even weighed in on the controversy with a surprising comment about race and the United States:
There is a paradox for this country and a contradiction of this country and we still haven't resolved it …. But what I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them, and that's our legacy."
We don't mimic the immigrant story. Where this conversation has got to go is that black Americans and white Americans founded this country together and I think we've always wanted the same thing," she said.
After weeks of tit-for-tat Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton turned their attention to the harrowing economic climate.
In The New York Times: “Senator Barack Obama called for tighter regulation of mortgage lenders, banks and other financial institutions, even as he spoke of pumping $30 billion into the economy to shield homeowners and local governments from the worst effects of the collapse of the housing bubble.
“Under Republican and Democratic administrations, we failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices,” Mr. Obama said. “The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady sustainable growth — a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street, but ends up hurting both.”
Clinton called for new standards governing mortgage lenders, reform of rating agencies to avoid conflicts of interest, a 30 percent annual interest rate cap on all credit cards and more immediate authority for the Federal Reserve to regulate financial institutions.
At the end of the week, Obama received an endorsement from Pennsylania Sen. Bob Casey. And had his fundraising dissected in the Washington Post.
On the other side, Sen Hillary Clinton’s message on the economy was drowned out by the controversy on her oft-repeated erroneous recollections about a 1996 USO trip to Bosnia. Comedian Sinbad, who was on the trip was was quoted as saying: "What kind of president would say, 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot so I'm going to send my wife...oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'
She ended with week with her husband, former Pres. Bill Clinton, telling detractors who wanted her to pull out of the race, to “chill out.” And finally having her efforts defended by Obama, who said she can run as long as she wants. He was probably feeling magnanimous as a result of a Gallup polls that gives him
