Day: March 17, 2008

Washington Post:

Sen. Barack Obama will deliver a major speech about race in Philadelphia tomorrow that he said would explore his relationship with Chicago pastor Jeremiah Wright and the wave of controversy it has stirred in his presidential bid.

“I am going to be talking about not just Reverend Wright, but just the larger issue of race in this campaign, which has ramped up over the last couple of weeks,” Obama told reporters after a town hall meeting here. According to aides, he was up until 3 a.m. Monday working on his remarks.

Wright, who recently retired as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s South Side, was Obama’s spiritual guide when he became a practicing Christian during his 20s. He presided over Obama’s marriage to Michelle and baptized both Obama daughters. But Wright, a fiery preacher, has come under heavy media scrutiny for a series of racially charged remarks he has made from the pulpit, and Obama has played defense on the issue since Friday.

The controversy over Wright’s comments, which includes video of Wright saying that blacks should say “God damn, America” and that the 9/11 attacks were America’s chickens coming home to roost, will be ideal fodder for Republican attack ads in the general election, so Obama needs to tamp this down right now.

Giving an address on race and religion at this particular moment is a smart move. It plays into Obama’s strengths — he is indisputably a great speaker. (His performance will undoubtedly make a mockery of Mitt Romney’s silly, robotic presentation on Mormonism in Texas last year.) And if the speech is effective it could accomplish two things: It might cauterize the issue of Wright’s comments in the general election, and it could ramp up his support in Pennsylvania, thus staving off going negative against Hillary Clinton for another week, at least.

So “now what?

The Florida Democratic Party said this afternoon it won’t pursue a do-over of its contested primary, putting the dispute squarely in the lap of the Democratic National Committee’s rules committee next month.

Florida officials had floated the idea last week of a mail-in vote, but questions quickly arose about its logistics and fairness. The consensus from thousands of Democrats is against a revote, Representative Karen L. Thurman, the state party’s chairwoman, says in a letter to Democrats.

“A party-run primary or caucus has been ruled out, and it’s simply not possible for the state to hold another election, even if the Party were to pay for it,” Thurman writes.