With respect to his former pastor, Barack Obama decided yesterday that it was no longer enough to merely reject and denounce. It had become imperative for Obama to nuke and bury.

He had no choice. Jeremiah Wright had turned into a one-man wrecking crew, and it was starting to look like Obama was just a passive bystander, a hapless witness to his own destruction, lacking the requisite guts to take the guy down. Most importantly, that kind of passivity is hardly the kind of character trait that many Americans want to see in a commander-in-chief. A real leader has to show that he can confront and isolate his adversaries. And Wright had indeed become an adversary.

So, referring to Wright's Monday rant on national television, Obama stated yesterday: "When I say I find (his) comments appalling, I mean it. It contradicts everything that I'm about and who I am. And anybody who has worked with me, who knows my life, who has read my books, who has seen what this campaign is about I think will understand that it is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country...I have spent my entire adult life trying to bridge the gap between different kinds of people. That's in my DNA, trying to promote mutual understanding. To insist that we all share common hopes and common dreams as Americans and as human beings. That's who I am. That's what I believe. That's what this campaign has been about.

"(Monday), we saw a very different vision of America. I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw...There has been great damage (to the Wright-Obama relationship). I do not see the relationship being the same after this."

OK, maybe that wasn't exactly nuke-and-bury, but it was far stronger than anything Obama had previously said. And he had to say it. Polls indicate that Obama has lost ground in both North Carolina and Indiana, both which stage primaries next Tuesday. And while Obama had previously stated that he had not attended church on the Sunday when Wright had blamed America for 9/11, there was no way he could plead obliviousness this time, not with Wright hitting the exact same theme live on CNN.

In recent weeks, most of the commentary (mine included) has focused on whether the Obama-Wright relationship would scare off a lot of white voters. But, based on an encounter I had late yesterday, I now think that, potentially, Obama's problem has much broader resonance.

I'm currently down in southern Mississippi, working on a long-scheduled freelance assignment totally disconnected from politics, but I did run into a Democratic strategist (yes, there are still a few in Mississippi), and naturally the Obama-Wright issue came up in conversation. His concern was Obama, by failing for so long to assail Wright in the strongest possible terms, was starting to look weak.

More specifically, this strategist feared that, in the eyes of swing voters (including the racially enlightened), Obama was starting to look weak; that many voters were perhaps starting to ask themselves whether this new phenom on the political scene was really tough enough to take on the likes of Ahmadinejad when he seemed so reluctant to handle Wright with the ruthlessness that is sometimes required of a chief executive.

So the question now is whether, for many voters, Obama's remarks yesterday come too late...and whether his severing of the relationship appears less principled than poll-driven.

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By the way, my road work in Mississippi may well mess with my blogging rhythm for the rest of this week. If new posts show up at odd times, or not at all, you'll know why.

Larry Eichel reports...

Barack Obama is expected to win the primary in North Carolina next Tuesday. But what really matters, of course, is that he has a good time. And this morning, he had a very good time.

He got to play basketball with the University of North Carolina varsity at ths Smith Center, aka the Dean Dome, under the guidance of coach Roy Williams. During the scrimmage, he took two shots and missed them both.

At one point, seeing that Obama was winded, Coach Williams took him out of the game. “The smartest thing you did was backing out of the way of that rebound down there,” Mr. Williams told him after taking him out. "Did you see that?" Obama replied.

When Obama got back in, he was fouled taking a shot. The offending player apologized. Not to worry, Obama said. “The Secret Service won’t do anything to you.”           

 

Wright's appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. yesterday propelled him back onto the front pages and gave him top billing on the cable news shows. His appearance, comments and egotism came in from criticism from virtually all quarters.

  "I'm sorry, but I've had it with Wright," was the first sentence from Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson who went on to say Wright had somehow come to decide he personified the black church. "In fact, he represents one twig of one branch of a very large tree." That from the main stream left was matched by this from the the main stream right, George Will, who like the rest of the GOP is already salivating:

"He is a demagogue...Wright also is an ongoing fountain of anti-American and, properly understood, anti-black rubbish. His speech yesterday demonstrated that he wants to be a central figure in this presidential campaign. He should be."

And this afternoon, Obama said: "I may not know him as well as I thought."

You can see Obama's comments here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JicZeBkg67A

Here's Robinson's column:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/28/AR2008042802102.html

 Here's Will's column:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/28/AR2008042802100.html

And here's a piece from the New York Times's Bob Herbert, who put it all very succinctly:

"The Rev. Jeremiah Wright went to Washington on Monday not to praise Barack Obama, but to bury him."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/opinion/29herbert.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

Earlier, Wright had appears on Bill Moyer's show on PBS, and spoken to the NAACP in Detroit.

And here is Will Bunch on Obama's press conference Tuesday:

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Rejecting_and_denouncing.html

 

Larry Eichel reports...

We're in North Carolina working on a story for later in the week, and we're at a very well-attended Obama town hall in Wilmington, N.C. It's part of a two-day Obama swing through the state before he returns to Indiana, which is shaping up as the more important of the two May 6 primaries.

At an Obama event, a local non-dignitary usually gets to introduce the candidate. Here, it was a kindergarten teacher. She got so excited that she said that this was, "Sorry, honey," bigger even than her wedding day.

So when Obama took the microphone, he asked for a round of applause for the teacher, and a round of applause for her husband.

He's delivering a slightly retooled stump speech that is a little less about hope and change and a little more about the specific concerns of working people struggling to get by: "Having politicians bickering back and forth doesn't help you. Having us talk about superdelegates doesn't help you...I'm going to spend all my time talking about you."

He tells the crowd: "Lately, my opponents have been trying to make this election about me and not about you." He's also emphasizing his family history and the opportunities he's had, saying "That's why I love this country."

All in all, the emphasis is just a little different, more about bread-and-butter issues and a little more openly patriotic. Not sure how much difference any of that makes. He's in good shape in North Carolina. But it might help a little in Indiana, where the race looks very close.

So, the Rove weighs in on Obama's race/blue collar/ethnic white problem. How to move past it? He has six suggestions, ranging from 1) get a new stump speech so you don't bore the press to 6) give more specifics on what you'd do as president.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/134322

Is Rove right? And if not, what should Obama do? Discuss below.

 

Larry Eichel reports...

There was an Ohio debate, a Texas debate and a Pennsylvania debate. Now, North Carolina and Indiana, the next states on the primary calendar, want debates of their own. And Hillary Rodham Clinton says she ready and willing.

But after his Philadelphia experience, Barack Obama appears to have had enough of debating, at least for now. He hasn't agreed to any more face-to-face encounters.

So Clinton will try to make an issue out of Obama's refusal to participate. She tried that in Wisconsin back in February, which feels like a long time ago, and it didn't work. We'll see what happens this time. 

 

Thomas Fitzgerald reports:

Colleague Amy Worden was on a conference call with Gov. Rendell earlier during which he was going over the primary results. He was Sen. Hillary Clinton's biggest booster.

A reporter asked Rendell whether he was still determined not to be on the Democratic ticket or in the cabinet.

The gov had this to say: "This campaign reinforced my view I can only work for myself. They were always shoving talking points in my hand - always read them but [ignored them]. I would not be a good number two, and would not be a good cabinet member...I was thinking this is probably the last campaign I will fully immerse myself in…It was a pretty nostalgic night for me."

 

Kia Gregory reports:

When it comes to winning the White House, Governor Ed Rendell boiled the strategy down to four key states: Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

With Clinton’s victory yesterday, he endorsed her once again as “by far the strongest candidate” for the Democratic nomination in a conference call this afternoon with reporters.  

And…

“If you count the Florida vote,” he said, and factor in the upcoming primaries, “I believe Senator Clinton will end up with the most popular votes, and that really cuts the knees out of Obama.”

In his ideal world, the Democratic ticket would read Clinton/Obama -- heck, even Obama/Clinton.

“Either way,” he said, “I think they would be unbeatable.”

But in the real world, Rendell admitted Obama has a strong hold.

“If anything, this goes to the convention,” where Rendell said the super delegates will play their traditional role and decide the party's strongest candidate come November.

Rendell refused to take credit for Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania.  He attributed her win to the last debate.

“In the debate, she had a much better command of the issues,” he said, “and presented herself as a better commander in chief.  Senator Obama stumbled,” particularly on the issue of taxes.

Asked if he’s concerned about race dragging on, the governor said:

“I think it helps the party,” he said. “If Clinton had lost, do you think we’d have 300,000 additional Democrats on the rolls? No way.”

Even going the distance doesn’t frighten him.

“All this stuff will be forgotten,” he said, referring to the November election, “particularly if the candidates broker a ticket.”