Democrats Excited About Bain Should Remember Jeremiah Wright (The Atlantic Wire)

It's odd David Axelrod is so excited to see the attacks on Mitt Romney's business career in the Republican primary, considering that four years ago, the early airing of another emotional issue in the primaries was expected to stop Axelrod's own candidate, Barack Obama. Axelrod told old The New York Times' Jackie Calmes Thursday that Romney won't get valuable practice in responding to his rivals' "vulture capitalism" attacks. "Rather than immunizing him, this will likely just open the floodgates," he said. "I guess the only downside is that Mitt Romney might not be the nominee." It seems like Axelrod is forgetting fairly recent history. In the long 2008 primary, Obama had to deal with the inflammatory comments of his former preacher, Jeremiah Wright, who said a lot of things white folks found provocative ("Goddamn America," and so on.) Not only did Obama go on to win the general election, he won North Carolina --  a state with such charged racial politics that it had a eugenics program of forced sterilization until 1974.

Related: The Likeness of Being Romney and Obama

In the spring of 2008, the conventional wisdom held that video of Wright's speeches meant Obama was doomed. "Liberal apologists who grasp the devastating impact the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has on Barack Obama's chances of being elected president of the United States this year join the candidate in explanation and excuses. Sorry. No cigar," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker wrote. The New York Times' Bob Herbert warned, "the apparent helplessness of the Obama campaign in the face of the Wright onslaught contributes to the growing perception of the candidate as weak, as someone who is unwilling or unable to fight aggressively on his own behalf." And yet, Obama gave a celebrated speech on race, and this fall the first black president is up for reelection.

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Democrats are oddly unified in claiming the early Bain attacks are awesome. "We were shocked that his rivals went there but nonetheless pleased because now the charges about his status as a corporate raider enjoy the luster of bipartisan ship," a senior Democratic strategist emailed Politico's James Hohman. This senior Democratic strategist was so sure of this analysis that he or she emailed the exact same thing to Talking Points Memo, including the misspelling of bipartisanship. The senior Democratic strategist is one of the few who wouldn't lend his or her name to the analysis. “It’s a total win-win, ” pollster Geoff Garin, of the pro-Obama superPAC Priorities USA, told Calmes.

Related: Mitt Romney's Secret Weapon: Mormonism

Soon we'll have a chance to see Romney's practice in action. Politico's Reid J. Epstein reports that Romney's campaign is working on a response "tailored to rebut Republican and Democratic attacks separately." Here are two problems identified by conservatives that Romney can work on responding to now:

Related: Gingrich Is the Most Polarizing Candidate But Also Most Admired

Not everyone buys the "y'all are just haters" defense. In his New Hampshire victory speech, Romney said his rivals were echoing Obama's "bitter politics of envy." The Times points out that the National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru warned, “Careful, Mitt. Don't want to insinuate that people only oppose you because they resent your success.”Romney supported TARP. RedState's Erick Erickson summarized Romney's argument Wednesday, saying, "Bain participated in capitalism, revitalized defunct companies, spun off as needed, and from the ashes of creative destruction of capital made a profit, saved or created companies, and saved or created jobs therefore let’s not attack Romney for his time there." Okay then, Erickson says, "If Mitt Romney saw, knew, profited from and participated in the creative destructive of capital, why did he advocate the government passing the troubled asset relief program (“TARP”)? Why not let the creative destruction of capital solve the problem and potentially make a profit off it?"And it looks like Romney might get the chance to practice and get his competitors off his back. Wednesday, Newt Gingrich indicated he might back off Romney a little bit, because, "Obama just makes it impossible to talk rationally in that area because he is so deeply into class warfare that automatically you get an echo effect." Democrats might be officially let down by this retreat, but it's hard to imagine they feel the same way privately.

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Democrats preempting revival of Rev. Jeremiah Wright (Daily Caller)

In an effort to preempt what could be damaging political issue for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, Democrats are warning Republicans against reviving the issue of his relationship with controversial ex-pastor Jeremiah Wright.

And in one case, a Democratic operative is getting ahead of any discussion of Wright by implying that raising the issue amounts to playing the race card.

Ted Devine, a Democratic operative who worked for Al Gore and John Kerry, recently accused Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign of using a images of a black church in an ad “to bring back Rev. Wright and race.”

“As someone who does this for a living, there is absolutely no way that’s not intentional,” Devine told The Hill about the video, which doesn’t include any mention of Wright but does feature two brief cutaway shots to an all-black audience. “There is no other rational explanation for that scene other than to suggest a racial reference, and most likely invoke Jeremiah Wright.”

Drew Westin, a professor at Emory University and a prominent progressive commentator, also saw racial overtones in the Romney ad.

“There are three things about the racial composition of the people in the background: For Obama, whenever they’re shown clearly, they’re a mix of whites and blacks. Whenever they’re either presented in dark light so you can’t see, or presented at a speed that makes them subliminal, they’re all black,” Westin told the Huffington Post last week.

“For Romney, there isn’t a black person in the background in any of the scenes he’s in. It’s inconceivable that his team didn’t think to make sure there was at least some diversity in the crowds he was speaking to unless the goal was to juxtapose subliminal black people against white people for Romney,” Westin said.

Pollster Doug Schoen, a Democrat who has been critical of Obama’s performance as president, told The Daily Caller that it would be “wrong-headed” for Republicans to discuss Wright because the issue has “no relevance to this campaign or to Obama’s first term.” (RELATED: Exclusive video: Obama in 2006: I ‘stole’ book title ‘Audacity of Hope’ from ‘my pastor’)

“[It] would be over-reaching and could well backfire against the Republicans,” he added.

During the 2008 election, videos showed Wright famously denouncing the U.S. government during religious services, even saying at one point, “Not God bless America, God damn America!”

The title for Obama’s book, “The Audacity of Hope,” came from a sermon delivered by Wright. Before controversy erupted during the 2008 election over Wright, Obama praised his former pastor, including in a new video from 2006 published by TheDC this week.

If Democrats are able to remove the issue of Wright from the table by associating it with playing the race card, it could be a major win for the White House and their efforts to appeal to white voters.

A recent study by the liberal Center for American Progress found that Obama would have to win either 47 percent of college-educated white voters or 41 percent of all white voters in order to be re-elected.

Obama won 47 percent of college-educated white voters and 43 percent of all white voters in 2008. But if he fails to meet at least one of the thresholds outlined in the study; white working-class voters could doom his re-election campaign if they turn out for the GOP nominee like they did for Republican candidates in 2010.

However, in terms of strategy, one Republican operative said it’s not necessary to revive the issue.

“Honestly it’s probably not a useful or productive line of attack at this point,” Michael Goldfarb, a former 2008 McCain campaign aide, told TheDC.

“It strikes me that bringing up Wright is not just unnecessary, but a distraction from Obama’s egregious record,” Goldfarb said.

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