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North Carolina TV Stations Refuse to Air Anti-Obama TV Ad

April 25, 2008 9:48 AM

ABC Charlotte affiliate WSOC-TV and CBS Raleigh affiliate WRAL-TV are refusing to air the North Carolina Republican Party TV ad featuring the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an ad condemned by both the RNC and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

"I just don't think it's appropriate to be on our air," Joe Pomilla, general manager for WSOC-TV, told The Charlotte Observer. "I think it's offensive, and I'm not real comfortable with the implications around race."

Technically the ad is against Democratic gubernatorial candidates Bev Perdue and Richard Moore, who have endorsed Obama. But only nominally. It's clear purpose is to tag Obama as "extreme."

"For 20 years, Barack Obama sat in his pew listening to his pastor," the narrator says.

Cue Rev. Wright and his "God d--- America" sermon.

"They should know better," the narrator says of the local Dems who endorsed Obama. "He's just too extreme for North Carolina."

The North Carolina Democratic Party has called the ad racist. Jerry Meek, the chairman of the N.C. Democratic Party, told the Winston-Salem Journal that the ad is attempting to exploit racial bias among white voters.

"It clearly is the case that this is part of the ‘Southern strategy,'" Meek said. "It's been around for a long time. This is a page directly out of something that Jesse Helms would do."

But North Carolina GOP Chair Linda Daves denied any racial motivations behind the ad.

"If Senator Clinton had a pastor who made these same anti-American statements and the Democrat candidates for Governor endorsed her, we would be running the same ad," she said.

This controversy comes at the same time Wright has decided to propel himself back into the public sphere, starting with an interview to air tonight on PBS.

- jpt

April 25, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (68)

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This comment refers back to the lady that called into the Michael Baisden show the other day and said that Hillary could do more for African-Americans than Barak. She said that if black men would not be doing what they are doing to get in trouble then they would not have to worry about if the system is unjust. What about Sean Bell? I think you know how the story goes. People also need to wake up and know that George Washiington was not the 1st President. Look up the informaiton on John Hanson, and he was not a white man.

Posted by: Wanda | Apr 28, 2008 11:12:55 AM

Why should Sen. Obama have another debate with Hllary Clinton? Everyone with a 6th grade education knows Hillary Clinton has is in Financial troubles with her campaign, that she is not willing to pay for with their fortune. She wants to debate NOT TO TALK ABOUT THE ISSUES but to take cheap shots so that she can get FREE PRESS using the guillable talking heads that's suppose to be News Reporters, Sen.Obama has shown he is above all of the politics as usual, Sen. Clinton simply wants to get much needed Free Press The American voters are saying she is worth $109,000,000.pay for your campaign yourself.

Posted by: janet | Apr 27, 2008 1:04:23 PM

OBAMA IS REFUSING ANOTHER DEBATE WITH HILLARY. IF HE CAN'T HANDLE HER, THEN IT SPEAKS TO HIS INABILITY AND LACK OF EXPERIENCE TO LEAD AN ENTIRE COUNTRY.

ALTHOUGH SENATOR OBAMA IS A CHARMING AND ELOQUENT SPEAKER, WE NOW KNOW HE FIZZLES AND FALLS APART WHEN HE HAS NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF THE QUESTIONS POSED TO HIM (ABC'S DEBATE).

SENATOR OBAMA'S "FINGER" TO HILLARY AND THE "BRUSHING OFF HIS SHOULDER" GESTURES CLEARLY DEMONSTRATE HIS POOR JUDGEMENT AND HIS CAPABILITY TO ACT INAPPROPRIATELY. THIS ATTROCIOUS BEHAVIOR BY OBAMA (OR ANY OTHER CANDIDATE) SHOULD BE A "WAKE UP CALL" AS TO WHETHER OR NOT SENATOR OBAMA CAN BE CONSIDERED AS "PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE MATERIAL".

Posted by: BONNIE | Apr 27, 2008 10:51:33 AM

I think we all owe a debt to the McCain campaign for painting the Clinton clan further into a corner with this issue.

Last week I was horribly dispondent about the way the Dem primary was headed (and I'm from MI), but this week has brought me renewed confidence that the majority of American's will do the right thing and elect Barack Obama in November. Thanks to the NC GOP !!!

Posted by: dennis | Apr 27, 2008 9:48:49 AM

It is high time this foolishness stopped!!! Pastor Wright's sermons should be heard in their entirety before people make these idiotic assumptions!!HE DID NOT LIE!!! MI and FL voters WON'T be disenfranchised if certain delegates aren't seated at the DNC. Sen.Obama DID NOT belittle smalltown America in his comments nor has his campaign EVER played the race card.I used to be a Hillary supporter up until a couple of months ago.The tone of her campaign has gotten far too negative and decietful.More important her supporters refuse to back Sen.Obama if she is not the nominee.Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face!!

Posted by: orin | Apr 26, 2008 7:49:26 PM

Think about it...do you want to elect someone who says, after 20 years, that he never heard or knew of Wright's anti-American and racist rhetoric? Doesn't that bring into question his ability to "know" or "hear" what foreign leaders, friendly and not so friendly, are saying if he were to be president??

Of course, I think he did know and hear, but is lying, but that's another issue...

Posted by: Think about it | Apr 26, 2008 1:05:58 PM

I have not seen the ad. What I have seen is Bill Moyer's fabulous interview with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and I have watched nearly all of Rev. Wright's 2001 sermon. I am white, and mostly unfamiliar with the tradition of black preaching. But having seen the interview and heard the sermon, I believe that anyone (including right wing republicans with a strong anti-Obama objective) watching these 2 pieces in their entirety would understand the full context of his message. I believe anyone viewing these in full would appreciate the unfamiliar (to whites) rhetorical device used by a preacher who loves humanity and has a deep, and well researched distrust of government--ANY government. His sermon is not anti-American. The right wing cynically spins it this way with an endless loop of ONE SENTENCE, on Fox "news." I am certain Fox news staff did watch ALL of the reverend's sermon, and they likely did watch all of Bill MOyer's interview with Wright last night. Their agenda is to knowingly twist and manipulate with 100% dishonesty. They KNOW the full context of his sermon. Yet they pretend to not know, to not understand, to regard as "racist" (there is nothing in his sermon that condemns white people, by the way) a clear message that was put in a context of thousands of years--i.e., government is a power that can abuse its trust and serve only the interest of the powerful. When it does, it has departed from what we know to be godly. Rev. Wright asks us to be guided by God, not blindly faithful to any one government that defies what we know is right. Deep down, we all know our own government consolidates power, bombs civilians, tortures prisoners--all in ways that are decidedly NOT Christian. Yet when a black man shouts that truth out in the tradition of black preaching, we decry HIM as racist. That reaction dismisses our obligation to be responsible in the world, to face that the US, like all governments, abuses its power. That was his message.

Posted by: Trudy | Apr 26, 2008 10:26:50 AM

I would like to ask Linda Daves why was it NO BIG DEAL when then Republican Presidential nominee Ronald Regan opened his presidential campaign kick off speech at the County Fair in Neshoba, Mississippi on August 3, 1980?

With the fairgrounds covered with dozens of Confederate flags, Regan stated these words!!!!!

"There isn't any place like this anywhere."

"I believe in states' rights. I believe that we've distorted the balance of our government by giving powers that were never intended in the Constitution to the federal establishment."

As we all remember this to be the area made infamous with the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964.

How can we forget him characterizing poor women as welfare queens driving around in pink Cadillacs, and "to send the welfare bums back to work".

With all the racial polarization that characterized this former president, I dare she even attempt to polarize Rev. Wright as anything but honest, and simply telling the truth, as we all know THE TRUTH HURTS!!!!

Posted by: Lena | Apr 26, 2008 3:29:38 AM

Why are we treating Obama and Reverend Wright as though they have something to apologize to the American people for? Obama is not responsible for what Jeremiah Wright says. Furthermore, IT IS THE TRUTH! And the only people who have a problem with it are close-minded, Conservative, white racists who can't make the connection that you cannot do bad things to the citizens of your own country, and you cannot go outside of your country and do bad things to people without expecting it to happen directly in your own back yard. People go around here like they are sooo shocked and outraged that 9/11 happened... but with our government being as shady as it is, is it any wonder? We NEVER stopped to THINK about WHAT IS OUR GOVERNMENT DOING to the indigenous people around the world that make them retaliate in VIOLENCE. Bigotry begets bigotry. Anger begets anger. Violence begets violence. Terrorism in the form of slavery and extermination of Native Americans begets anti-American sentiments here and around the world. GET OVER IT!

Posted by: Dawn | Apr 26, 2008 1:18:40 AM

To the radio stations that refused to air the add against Sen.Obama I say thank you. There are still people of dignity in this world.
If Rev. Wright would have let his words be few Sen.Obama would not have to deal with this. Church and politics don't mix well together. Furthermore if Rev. Wright had so much to say about Sen. Obama it could at least been positive. Now instead of praying about the sistuation Rev. Wright has just opened another can of worms.

Posted by: H Jett | Apr 25, 2008 9:32:02 PM

why do you think McCain and Clinton and the Republicans are running ads/against Obama? He is the defacto candidate. The Republicans have already started running against him. Why don't you think you see attack ads against Clinton? Because they are scared witless of Barack's General Election campaign.

Posted by: SMorris | Apr 25, 2008 7:44:08 PM

why do you think McCain and Clinton and the Republicans are running ads/against Obama? He is the defacto candidate. The Republicans have already started running against him. Why don't you think you see attack ads against Clinton? Because they are scared witless of Barack's General Election campaign.

Posted by: SMorris | Apr 25, 2008 7:37:01 PM

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is to funny!!!!!!! GOP Chair Linda Daves let me help you pick up your face and put it back on now. You must feel really stupid right about now.

Posted by: Dennis In Orlando, FL | Apr 25, 2008 7:08:37 PM

'The fact that he is multi-cultured is the only reason everyone is sweating the small stuff! Had he been a white man, most of you same people would have probably already built him a throne and proclaim him Jesus.'
-----
That is a tad backwards.

If he had been a white man, B O would have been a blip on the tip of a pencil eraser.

Had he been another Martin Luther King, he would probably been handed the nomination.

Obama is neither.
He is a complainer and whiner and has surely shown his surly side to the press many times.

When Obama faired poorly in debates which was "usually" but especially in the last one, Obama made sure his blogging clog got on the horn and defended him..... blaming the Stephanopolis and Griffiths for the poorly selected words which stumbled trippingly off his tongue.

Many of his bloggers are paid in coin (dollars) for their rants..... some of which were filled with such hate, and venom .... some of which were probably slanderous..... many of which were thoughtless, poorly spelled and kind of silly... except for these special groupings of words which would appear many times in a blog.... by a variety of the same people;-)

I'm sure that some of Hillary's bloggers get paid too.... but they have never come across as mean-spirited as do the Obamaniacs.

And remember.... we're the stupid ones.

Or are we?????

Posted by: eyes open | Apr 25, 2008 6:08:19 PM

Obama's excuse of his relationship with Rev. Wright was: it's like you love your addicted father.... but wouldn't you do anything about that if you really have a drunken father and YOU HAVE DIFERENT VIEWS WITH HIM according to you, and you are not a ten year old who would probably couldn't do anything about it? You would at least try to talk him out of it and send him to some kind of institute or hospital to cue him or if you wouldn't do that for whatever reason, you shouldn't have sit down with him and drink with him for twenty years!! If Obama could not change one person so close to him for twenty years, how can he change Washington or America in a few years

Posted by: Jean | Apr 25, 2008 5:31:20 PM

I find it amazing how the media goes out of it's way to protects Obama. I don't remember local stations not carrying the Kerry swift-boat ads, they were shown in my area. Rev. Wright is real, not made-up.

Posted by: unhappy in fl | Apr 25, 2008 5:16:51 PM

North Carolina does not need to be weary theirselves about the AD, if it comes on so be it. Move on to the issue that the Carolina families such as gasoline prices, food, healthcare.

Posted by: rachelle | Apr 25, 2008 5:07:36 PM

I think ABC and CBS should be investigated for the anti free speech aspect- these are american air waves and these stations must be held accountable for their anti free speech efforts.

This is an outrage and un American


Posted by: CJ | Apr 25, 2008 4:39:15 PM

Hilary and McCain are disgusting. Not because of their race, because they are used to the sick politics that has run this country since forever. White america has run this country since the beginning. They are responsible for ALL of the mess (recessions, war, etc.) we have been in since it's existence. I want my children to grow, learn and be healthy. It's time for a change. I'm sick and tired of it all.

Posted by: Truth | Apr 25, 2008 3:57:40 PM

There is nothing wrong with the ad. Too bad McCain and the stations buckled to St. Obama. You remember him... he's the guy who sat in the pews of a racist church for 20 years and then turned around and gave the rest of us a lecture on racism. Is anybody else as sick of this as I am? And do we really want to sit through 4 or, God forbid, 8 years of this?

Posted by: HoosierSue | Apr 25, 2008 2:52:14 PM

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