Politico’s Politics

Some at The Weekly Standard seem to think so. This may save a GOP Senate seat or two if run in appropriate conservative states, and may even help the McCain campaign in a few states that are competitive (I’d speculate Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, maybe Florida with Jewish voters). However, for this issue to really resonate and help change the dynamics of the race, ads alone are not enough. A game changer – and Wrights rant has the potential to be a game changer – can only come about if the topic becomes part of the campaign conversation and narrative. An ad generated by one of the two campaigns, coupled with the candidate staying on message on that issue, can easily have this effect. While its not inconceivable that an ad generated by a third party could also have a similar impact, its more likely to simply fall on death ears in the press, especially if Obama ignores it. So, if the GOP wants Wright to become an issue, McCain and Palin are the only ones who can guarantee to make it it happen.

Update: Politico’s story linked in the Weekly Standard blog post is actually pretty detailed, and discussed the differences between McCain and his campaign advisers (including Palin) over whether Wright is a legitimate issue. Apparently (and correctly), Palin and these other advisers see a “sharp attack on Wright as the best — and perhaps last — chance to rattle Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill. ) and force voters to rethink their support of him.”

Politico presents two real arguments from the McCain side about why Wright should not be use. First, “There’s a slippery slope in politics on the racial divide, and Sen. McCain made it very clear early on that he did not want to get into that area,” a top Republican official said. “I don’t want to be known as a racist, and McCain doesn’t want to be known as a racist candidate.” Come on… McCain has already been accused on being racist – more than once. Sen Clinton and President Clinton were also regularly accused of being racist in the primaries. This is an election for the presidency of the United States, and McCain has an obligation to his party to run the very best campaign that he can. He fails to run such a campaign if he does to “not want to get into that area” out of fear of being “known as a racist.” You either are a racist or are not, and there can be a argument about whether Wright is legitimate issue or is not. But if a candidate raises Wright, it has absolutely nothing to do with that candidate’s racism. Wright’s rant is problematic not because Wright is black, and would be just as problematic if Wright was white. It is problematic because his statements point to hatred of America, they are disgusting and despicable, and because someone running for President sat in his church for 20 years.

According to the Politico, McCain has a second reason for opposing the use of Wright: “But more important is that McCain thinks that the bringing of racial religious preaching in black churches into the campaign would potentially have grave consequences for civil society in the United States.” That argument actually has a lot of merit, but it does not outweigh the fact that this is a Presidential election with very serious consequences.

Update II: note, by the way, that not a single argument on the GOP side against using Wright is based on the idea that “this will not work” because every GOP strategist, even those who have been very critical of the McCain campaign’s negative turn at times, knows that a powerfully executed attack on Obama using Wright can cost him about 4-5 points in the polls, maybe more in Pennsylvania.