african american

Jeremiah Wright's recent media blitz has complicated Barack Obama's efforts to secure the Democratic presidential nomination.

To describe Jeremiah Wright as charismatic is to understate his extraordinary magnetism, which drew Barack Obama to Christianity twenty years ago. Sure, Wright is a divisive figure, but he's a uniter as well -- embracing gays and lesbians as well as militant Black Muslims, and building a kind of rainbow coalition of the excluded, which inspired Obama (and countless others) to go forth and perform good works. In turning on his pastor, Obama claims that Wright has changed. Could it be that Obama has changed?

While his Democratic rivals continued their battle, John McCain spent last week on a tour of America's "forgotten places" - most of them Democratic strongholds.

Was McCain's tour, which took him to Selma and Appalachia, the Ninth Ward of New Orleans and Youngstown, Ohio, a serious play for constituencies (the working poor, black and white alike) that go reliably for Democrats? Was it a cynical attempt to woo white suburbanites by burnishing his image as a different kind of conservative? Or was it just another play for free publicity - like his "biography tour" earlier in April - by a campaign that's short on funds and looking for ways to get the media to stop obsessing over Obama-Hillary long enough to give their candidate some airtime?