I'm into victory celebrations as much as the next guy, but I can't help fretfully obsessing about what seems the only powerful negative argument in the Republican's bag--the Wright stuff. The vast majority of my compatriot Obama supporters want to let sleeping dogs lie, as though talking about this issue can only make things worse. Speaking as a psychotherapist and politics junkie of 35 years, that depends on what's said. 

The now conventional companion arguments for ignoring this issue are that the damage done to him by the Wright stuff is insignificant and/or irreparable. My best response to those arguments is in my dailykos.com blog, To Build the Largest Possible Majority, Obama Must Deal Better With the Wright Stuff, which is an improved version of a blog published here at TPM. I argue that voters who initially were for Obama and then convinced by the Wright stuff that he is a closet radical are readily reachable in a major speech that addresses not only their complex list of damning facts but also the tricky illogic of guilt by association. I also suggested that, in the world of politics, races can be decided by a few percentage points, so even if there are just a few of the above kind of voters, it's worth trying to reach them. Moreover, I believe from talking with Clinton supporters that some of them who say they will vote for McCain are influenced most by the Wright stuff. There's more in that blog in favor of taking on the Wight problem more decisively now.

Incidentally, in response to the TPM version of the above dailykos blog, a blogger quoted what may be the most compelling demonstration that Obama was completely against black radicalism. He argues extensively for the positions and methods he has advocated throughout this campaign and his Illinois Senate career. Google What Makes Obama Run? by Hank De Zutter.

In this post, I only want to argue that, as odd as it may seem, I think Obama and his supporters are against more decisively addressing the Wright stuff partly because of low expectations. That seems absurd considering how high Obama has reached. But I think he can reach much higher.

In the beginning of the campaign, there was much more idealism in and around it. There was even talk of him being a kind of savior. After the Wright flap, that idealism partly disappeared, and it was widely observed that Obama's spirit flagged. He seemed stunned for several months. And he finally choose to try to let the Wright stuff pass into oblivion.

Now things are on the upswing, but I long for a return of the kind of blinding promise Obama's capacity for empathy coupled with his intelligence and other aspects of his temperament represent. The positive response of the radical militia in Nigeria to his call for a cease-fire is suggestive of the depth of his capacity to bring people together. But in America, his capacity to bring us together in the largest possible numbers definitely has been diminished.

If he can once again wow us with his capacity for empathy and sense making and thereby interest disaffected people in his presidency, his chances of having enough support to create substantial and lasting change will be greatly enhanced.

My enthusiasm for him is partly because of my belief that he will greatly enhance the forces of empathy that lay underused in many corners of America. Not the least of these is in the work of James Blight, who I think should be considered for Secretary of State. Blight is a professor of international relations at the Watson Institute at Brown, and he is well known throughout the world for his work on the Cuban Missle Crisis. Blight advocates "deploying realistic empathy" in international relations and makes a strong argument that, had we used it in the runup to Vietnam, that war would not have happened.

There is a flood of work also showing the power of empathy in dealing with our big ticket psychological/social problems, ranging from the break-up of the family to alcoholism and mental illness. In this vein, I believe that Obama can make a much bigger difference than you might imagine if you weren't schooled in the forces of empathy that are poised and waiting for a champion to encourage and support them.

Obama supporters are promoting their opinion that the Wright stuff didn't significantly damage Obama. And they're arguing that Obama should just put the matter behind him. I passionately disagree and propose an alternative method for bringing back disaffected voters.

To take this problem more seriously than many bloggers and Obama himself have, consider the NY Times report of the results of highly regarded exit polls in Indiana and N.Carolina. Seventy three percent of Hillary voters agreed that the situation with Wright was "very important." And 18 percent of them said they would vote for McCain, which agrees with previous polls. I've read of and talked with a handful of people who truly liked Obama before the Wright revelations and now are dead set against him. Even if this kind of swing voter represents only five percent of the electorate, it seems important to at least consider alternate strategies for converting them back to Obama.

In what follows, I lay out a method for reaching them that's based on a five minute successful attempt to do that with an acquaintance of mine, Marlene. Marlene is not stupid, but she isn't a politics junkie like me. She doesn't delve into things deeply. I think she's representative.

She began our conversation, shaking her head and saying, "He's too radical." She explained that he was associated with Rev. Wright for too long.

The length of association is part of the argument. People say that, in 20 years, Obama must have learned how radical Wright was. I brought out my Nuclear Option immediately. I said, "If Obama was a radical, you would think that someone would have overheard him say something radical." She was slightly stunned, but she agreed. 

Of course, her brainwashing by the media was complex. So despite this compelling argument, she retrenched, saying, "But they were close. Wasn't Wright his mentor?" I brought out my next most compelling argument. I said, "But Wright is not a relentlessly hateful, over-the-top guy. He preached love and forgiveness during many of his sermons. He cared deeply about many people regardless of race. He even went to the White House to offer Bill Clinton solace during his impeachment debacle. He has white people in his church, and he always qualifies the hate speech. It's not as though Obama was sitting there listening to Wright say over and over again things like, "The US government infected black people with AIDS." The media has said these things many, many times more than Wright has.

She seemed to be with me at first, but that reminder of Wright's inflammatory statement about AIDS evoked a strong reaction from Marlene. She told me that she had worked to help many people with AIDS and was deeply offended by Wright's statement. She was filled with resentment toward Wright. The media spends paragraphs detailing what's awful about Wright and just a sentence or two on proving that Obama must agree with him. So people become so upset at Wright's racism and hate regarding the AIDS comment, that it's as though they're imagining Wright repeating these things from the pulpit as often as the media has. But no such thing happened. I tried out that view on Marlene. She seemed affected but defaulted as though I hadn't just made the above point.

I expanded on the idea that Wright's statements had been taken out of context. Regarding the AIDS comment, it's important to know that he was drawing an analogy between the Tuskeegee experiments and his accusations about AIDS. She'd never heard of those experiments in which blacks in prison were forced to submit to injections of dangerous substances. I added that Wright didn't say he had evidence that AIDS in the black community was caused by the government. He explained that he felt the government did too little to protect and treat blacks.

She shook her head in disbelief, saying that she had never heard of those experiments. Again, she defaulted to another piece of the argument against Obama. She said, "How could Obama sit there Sunday after Sunday listening to that crap?" I reiterated that those kinds of grossly inflammatory things weren't said often. Moreover, Obama has publically denounced them. And I kept reminding her, "He's never said anything of that sort; there's zero evidence other than his association with Wright."

I could see her softening and changing her mind. She said, "I just don't read much like you do, but you're making sense." For one thing, she knows and respects me for being honest and fair. That has got to be part of the equation. To be convincing, there has to be a fair witness or group of them.

To help close the deal, I did what I've recommended that Obama did. I talked about the problem of guilt by association charges. I empathized with her plight, saying that many smart people during the McCarthy era were taken in by these kinds of attacks. There's something very confusing about them, something difficult to penetrate when you don't have sufficient information, which is the plight of many voters. These people need help not only in seeing through particular charges by also in understanding the workings of guilt by association.

I then shut the door on the guilt by association argument by saying that, for someone to be guilty, there just has to be some record or even hearsay of them saying or doing something radical. I said, "The way I try to capsule the most compelling reaction to guilt by association is by asking, 'Where's the proof.?!" Again, that argument positively affected her.

To win back these voters, Obama has to mount this kind of involved, thorough response. That's partly because guilt by association has some actual validity. An association with someone who says or does things we don't like is a good clue that a person might be guilty of agreeing with him. Such an association is worth taking seriously as clue. And the sheer number of the qualities of the association--being a mentor, sounding board, officiant at one's wedding, etc.--feels like stronger evidence. But, it should be pointed out, those qualities of the association are still only clues. They're not evidence.

As increasing numbers of aspects of the association come out, the more the casual news and opinion consumer is deceived by the spectre of what seems to be mountains of evidence. But, Obama should explain, None of that matters. There has to be some direct evidence, even just hearsay evidence, that the person actually has done or said something objectionable.

Obama can do this deconstruction of guilt by association impersonally, like a statesman leading us out of all of the guilt by association attacks against all candidates rather than just in defense of his candidacy. The main point here is that this problem is involved and requires a more involved and well thought out response than he has given so far.

Of course, you can't see me, but I'm STAMPING MY FEET, expressing my frustration at Obama and all of his supporters except me. My frustration is with the lack of focus on the swing voters who have been affected by the guilt by association attacks. And I'm frustrated with the lack of a compelling strategy for convincing them to swing back to Obama.

Two attacks affected these swingers: he's a radical and he can't passionately represent the interests of working and poor people. Ludicrous as these attacks seems to those of us who have studied his background and support him, they are having an effect that we should care about. If these attacks are only have a 1 percent effect, as his losses in the polls--especially in North Carolina--should inspire us to take seriously these particular voters. How?

The most important step we can take is to stop attacking the attacks and the attackers who launch them. We should stop ridiculing the attacks for being, well, ridiculous, "too negative," groundless, and so on. That's because out counterattacks make the swung swing voters feel attacked. This is a difficult idea to get, especially when you're completely convinced that the attacks against Obama truly are ridiculous, so I'll explain.

Because it is difficult to empathize with the swing voter, the following will be a bit belabored. Suppose you're a swing voter, and you're worrying, Maybe Hillary is right? Obama did spend 20 years with Wright and they were close. Wright was his mentor and sounding board and performed his wedding and the two baptisms. Like Obama's critics say, if he was that close for that long, he must believe at least some of the radical stuff Wright believes. So, dear reader, when Obama attacks the attacker and ridicules the criticism, this swing voter has got to feel criticized, as though he or she is stupid for even considering whether the attack is true. The feeling is, "Obama, since you think it's ridiculous for me to believe that you might be a radical, you must think I'm ridiculous." Put differently, the problem is that the swung swing voter feels she or he is being put down for their newfound, tentatative beliefs.

If I'm correct, then it seems vital to stop attacking the attackers and their attacks and start responding only with reasoned argument. The reasoned argument I've recommended in previous posts starts with empathizing with the swung swing voter, not just avoiding putting them down. Obama can say that he too has not fully understood guilt by association attacks well enough to help people see through them.

Once on their side, he can explain that no one has any proof that he is a radical or doesn't care about working class people. The only proof they have is not really proof at all. It's just a clue. One's associations are clues that a person might be guilty. But there is no other proof, he can say.

He can add that no one has ever heard him say or seen him do anything radical, and he can explain that the absence of any words or behavior other than his associations is much more powerful proof than his association with Wright. (The worry about the association with Ayers is easier to allay.) He can say that the proof that he is a mainstream politician is voluminous; his life is filled with non-radical statements and things he's done.

The same type of arguments can be used to allay fears about his ability and desire to stand up for working class people. But unless he takes the swung swing voter more seriously and directly speaks to their concerns, it's difficult to imagine them swinging back.