Obama tries to make up lost ground in Pastor row

4/30/2008 - 3:52:28 PM

Barack Obama was scrambling to put his presidential bid back on track today after denouncing his former pastor.

With key primaries in Indiana and North Carolina looming next week, his fight with Hillary Clinton has given Republican nominee John McCain weeks to unite his party and define his candidacy with few major challenges from the opposition.

Mr Obama called a news conference yesterday to denounce the Rev Jeremiah Wright, whose comments and highly publicised appearances were threatening to sink his historic bid for the White House.

While he holds an apparently unassailable lead in elected delegates, the Wright controversy had created a heavy drag on Mr Obama’s momentum.

His refusal to sever ties to the theologian was seen as part of the reason Mrs Clinton won a nearly 10-percent victory in Pennsylvania last week. She has used her performance there to argue that the party’s key superdelegates should back her as the most electable Democrat in the November general election.

There are about 800 Democratic superdelegates, officeholders and party officials who can vote for either candidate regardless of the results of state primary and caucus contests.

With only nine state and territorial contests remaining, Mrs Clinton cannot achieve the 2,025 delegate count needed for the nomination without capturing most of the superdelegates who remain uncommitted.

That would put the party hierarchy at odds with Democratic voters and could further deepen the Democratic split.

A sombre-faced and angry Mr Obama took on his former pastor after weeks of defending his good works. He told reporters he was outraged and appalled by what he termed a “performance” by Wright at the National Press Club in Washington a day earlier. The fiery preacher repeated charges that the government created the Aids virus to harm blacks, and that the country brought the September 11 terror attacks on itself through its own tactics abroad.

Publicity over the comments has battered Mr Obama’s campaign since they first came to light last month, and is seen as severely damaging to his support among white working-class voters in Indiana and North Carolina.

“I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday,” Mr Obama said.

He flatly rejected the views expressed by Wright, who officiated at his wedding, baptised his two daughters and had been his pastor for 20 years before his retirement earlier this year.

“What became clear to me is that he was presenting a world view that contradicts who I am and what I stand for,” Mr Obama said.