In the short time since the announcement from Sarah Palin that her daughter is pregnant and will be marrying the father of her child, reactions have started to come out with Barack Obama, taking the high road and declaring "families are off limits."
"We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us. Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.
"Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi's privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates."
Reactions are coming out fast and furiously from Evangelicals, supporters and even Barack Obama issued a harsh response.
Starting with Barack Obama's reaction when he was asked to comment on the news that Sarah Palin's 17 year-old daughter was pregnant, he said it was irrelevant to the political campaign and went on to admonish "I think peoples families are off limits and people's children are especially off limits, " as reported by CBS News.
He continued on to say that he would strongly urge people to "back off" further stating , "My mother had me when she was 18 years old,” Obama said, adding that families should deal with these issues privately. “That shouldn’t be the topic of our politics, and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that’s off limits.”
He continued on to assert that no one in his campaign is involved nor will be and he concluded by saying, "And if I ever thought that it was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they’d be fired.”
Watch the whole video above, those were just the highlights.
Other reactions coming out include evangelical leaders, who expressed excitement and immediately united behind the John McCain/Sarah Palin ticket within hours of McCain announcing Palin as his running mate as TIME noted last Friday when the announcement was made.
Dr. James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family issued a statement right after the news came out today, reported by ABC News:
"In the 32-year history of Focus on the Family, we have offered prayer, counseling and resource assistance to tens of thousands of parents and children in the same situation the Palins are now facing. We have always encouraged the parents to love and support their children and always advised the girls to see their pregnancies through, even though there will of course be challenges along the way. That is what the Palins are doing, and they should be commended once again for not just talking about their pro-life and pro-family values, but living them out even in the midst of trying circumstances.
"Being a Christian does not mean you're perfect. Nor does it mean your children are perfect. But it does mean there is forgiveness and restoration when we confess our imperfections to the Lord. I've been the beneficiary of that forgiveness and restoration in my own life countless times, as I'm sure the Palins have.
"The media are already trying to spin this as evidence Gov. Palin is a 'hypocrite,' but all it really means is that she and her family are human. They are in my prayers and those of millions of Americans."
David Brody brings the response of another top Evangelical leader Dr. Richard Land, President of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, who states, "This is the pro-life choice. The fact that people will criticize her for this shows the astounding extent to which the secular critics of the pro-life movement just don’t get it. Those who criticize the Palin family don’t understand that we don’t see babies as a punishment but as a blessing. Barack Obama said that if one of his daughters made a mistake and got pregnant out of wedlock he wouldn’t want her to be punished with a child. Pro lifers don’t see a child as punishment.”
Brody himself believes this will resound with the religious community as well as with Americans as he points out, "Look, this development will actually be positive for the most part with Evangelicals. First they hear that Sarah Palin chooses the life option even though she had a Downs Syndrome baby and once again the family (and Bristol) has chosen the life option in this recent case. That’s a double “ca-ching”. Let’s call this the Evangelical daily double," he thin goes on to point out how this will cause people to relate to Palin and her family.
These were the first reactions from the core base of the Republican Party supporters and considering their are already hundreds of stories written about this in such a short amount of time, it should be expected that more reactions will be coming out in the days to come, from both sides of the aisle.
The handling of this delicate situation will be a true indicator of the "tone" the next two months of political campaigning will go.
Obama probably understands immediately that if his supporters continue to attack Palin on this issue, he will be the one to suffer for it politically and no one can blame him for trying to set the tone and shut his far left extremist supporters up before they kill his chances completely.
Do I think his supporters will listen?
The smart ones will, the "Obamabot" portion of his supporters will not, and they will make such noise that it will be associated with Obama and he will suffer politically because of them.
(Added the updates from the previous post on this issue into the body of this piece because the other post was getting unruly.)