I've said in several comments and in other forums that I believe the extended Democratic primary battle is a good thing and the blip of Rev. Wright is one of the reasons that I've taken that position. Sen. Obama's preacher was naturally going to become an issue. I'm sure the more idealistic among us honestly believes that we're beyond it, that comments by a candidate's preacher should have no bearing and among the more vocal Obama supporters this may be the case, but the vast majority of the electorate are not vocal Obama supporters and most people who have voted in a primary have not voted for the man.

In 2004, one of the big reasons that John Kerry did not win the election that most people believed to be in the bag was because Karl Rove targeted specific districts and zip codes to rally the evangelical vote. And, though he's not actively working for the Republicans this time around, we're getting a good preview of a similar strategy by his comments on Fox News. I just watched a two-part segment from Hannity & Colmes, in which Mr. Rove twice repeats the "God damn, America", "U.S. of KKK-A" and the concept of Jesus being black. (Parts 1 & 2) He repeated all three twice and I'm sure that though these concepts may have no effect of a large segment of the population and the idea of a "Black Jesus" isn't anything new, they will play among those that Bill O'Reilly calls "regular folks" in a clip from his own show.

There really isn't anything that anybody will be able to do about how the racial question is perceived in some districts and among certain portions of the electorate, but those aren't people who were going to vote for Obama in the first place. The real questions will be how Sen. Obama addresses the issue, whether there will be lasting damage to his poll numbers and the effect that Tuesday's speech has on the future primary contests. What occurs from here on out will determine whether Obama will become the Democratic nominee and as a lifelong Democrat, I'm real glad that he's having to address these issues within the relatively safe harbor of the primary season and while we still have Hillary or the unstoppable possibility of a "dream ticket" (Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama) waiting in the wings.

The real measure of Tuesday's speech will be in the parsing. Rove makes reference to the phrasing of Sen. Obama's denials in the clipped segments and way back in February of 2007, I posted to my now-dormant blog about the lawyerly way that the candidate alternated pronouns to make a statement factually true. The other side and I mean the Republicans are going to go over his speech about race relations with a fine-tooth comb. His supporters and the Democratic Party are going to need to be prepared because though we're not going to convince everyone, if he is to become our nominee, we're probably going to have to put up some sandbags against the rising tide because Tuesday's speech appears to be so important, there's really no way that he'll be able to get it perfectly right.