THE WRIGHT TIME FOR A SEA CHANGE? DON’T THINK SO.

As you’ve probably noted, it’s been a little while since I last posted. I spent some time away from home, and while I was gone, I also tried to take some time away from the Presidential campaign. Now having been back for a few days, it’s clear what I missed. You can summarize it in two words – Jeremiah Wright.

This is what our campaign season has come down to – a referendum on what it says about a candidate when he has a loopy pastor.

Obama’s relationship with his wild and crazy preacher is getting all the publicity because his opponents are content to let him implode in peace, and in part because few are especially excited about those candidates. John McCain is especially underwhelming. He doesn’t seem to have a particularly good command of foreign policy issues, he appears to be a hopeless warmonger, and his economic guru is Marie “Let ‘em eat cake” Antoinette. As for Hillary, she is knowledgeable and feisty, but she has also proven herself to lie gratuitously about her experience (how’s that sniper fire going?), and to be willing to gut her party’s chances of winning by 33% if it would help increase her own chances of winning by 3%. Is there another way to explain why she said that her Republican opponent passes the Commander and Chief test but not her Democratic primary opponent?

Under the circumstances, Barack Obama should be way ahead in the polls, just like he was a couple of months ago. So … what happened? He sat his fanny in the wrong church, that’s what.

Bill Maher said all you need to say about Jeremiah Wright. The man is a “dick.” Obama went out of his way in his speech last month to avoid throwing Wright under the bus, and how does Jeremeiah repay him? By acting like Richard Pryor during his crack days. The problem, of course, is that Pryor was a comedian, whereas Wright is participating in what many believe to be a Greek tragedy. Clintonistas are spreading the word that “Obama is done” because his loopy pastor simply won’t be fenced in. Every week, we’re told to fear, Wright will give us a new quote. I’m expecting to hear something like “Now don’t take this out of context, but America can go fuck itself.” And then the conservatives would start questioning whether it’s such a leap from Michelle Obama’s statement about only now being “proud to be an American,” to “America can go fuck itself.” Cell by cell, Barack’s skin is being torn apart in full public view. And day by day, John McCain, he of the 100 years war and the permanent tax relief for the rich, is actually beginning to think he can win this thing.

The conventional wisdom is indeed that Obama is in trouble. But I don’t buy it. Barack will be our next President. He may not get elected with a huge margin of victory, but he’ll be the first one to cross the finish line. I feel more strongly about that than ever.

Barack can thank his lucky stars that Wright was just wrong enough this week to allow Barack to jettison the guy once and for all. To be sure, Barack still has some ‘splainin’ to do about his relationship with the pastor, but that’s why Barack is going on Meet the Press tomorrow. Russert will ask him some tough questions (“Why did you choose that church? How often did you go? What offensive things to you hear from your pastor?” etc.) and Barack will seize yet another opportunity to come clean. He is too smart to believe that he can continue to dodge these issues. Just as Bill Clinton came clean about “that woman, Miss Lewinsky” and survived the scandal politically, Barack will survive as well, once he answers the difficult questions. Maybe some of the answers will be postponed until after the primaries are over, but they’ll all be out by the end of June. And when we hear more of the truth, I’ve got to believe that we’ll forgive him with open arms. After all, who among us hasn’t known some jackasses in our life? And who among us hasn’t befriended some of them?

Ah, you say, but no matter what Barack does at this point, I must admit that Wright will continue to be a big distraction for him, whereas Hillary is allowed to get on TV and be given a free pass by virtually everyone now. Barack answers questions about his pastor and his other shady friend, the former Weatherman, whereas Hillary gets questioned about her foreign policy ideas, her health plan, and her gas tax relief proposal. Sure, she might be accused of “pandering” but at least she’s accused of pandering about public policy ideas, and not continually treated like a scandal magnet. You sometimes wonder whether it was Obama who was caught patronizing hookers and Spitzer who was “caught” listening to the wrong preacher.

To those who think the sky is falling for Barack, just play out the string a bit further, OK? He will surely do little worse than a dead heat on Tuesday, after which he will have won many, many more primaries and caucuses than Hillary, 150-160 more pledged delegates than Hillary, and 500,000-600,000 more votes than Hillary in states where both were permitted to campaign. More to the point, in each of those categories, Hillary no longer has the ability to catch Barack. Her only chance will be to convince two thirds of the undeclared superdelegates – a 33% landslide, more than she has won in any state in a long, long time – that she is somehow “more electable” than Barack. Electability is an amorphous word, and surely impossible to verify many months before an election. Polls in June are, after all, little better predictors of what would happen in November than polls in February. In short, for Hillary to win, she will have to hope that the superdelegates overwhelmingly ignore Barack’s lead in all the traditional, objective measures of performance. Does anyone seriously think the Democratic superdelegates have the yarblockies to do such a thing?

Let me suggest a little exercise. Posit Barack winning 14 more contests than Hillary, 140 more pledged delegates, and 200,000 more popular votes. Those numbers assume that Hillary will DRUB Barack from this point out. Then picture the Democratic superdelegates giving Hillary the nod.

Just what do you think would happen in Watts? And Houston? And Atlanta? And South East D.C.? And Detroit? And the Southside of Chicago?

I can only imagine that if the shoes were on the other feet, Hillary would be running advertisements every night showing pictures of fires and explosions in one city after another should her opponent win the nomination. At least Barack has the class to spare us that sort of sensationalism. But the superdelegates don’t need to watch sensationalist videos to know the consequences of stealing the election from the first serious black candidate in our nation’s history. They know the way this nation has treated black America for so many centuries. If, in light of that history, a black man can soundly defeat his opponent in pledged delegates, numbers of states, and legitimate popular vote and still lose the nomination, the Democrats might as well adopt “Darkies, Go Back to Africa!” as its official motto.

Relax. Won’t happen. But the fact that so many of you fear it might says volumes about how little confidence any of us has in today’s Democratic Party.