GOP Sees Pastor as Route to Nov. Win

After scrounging for ways to combat Barack Obama's appeal, Republican strategists now believe Rev. Jeremiah Wright is the perfect play to drag the Democrat through the mud in the general election. Said one of the inflammatory Wright clips making the rounds, “You start getting some sense of who he is and it’s not the Obama you thought—he’s not the Tiger Woods of politics.”

The real power of pastor-as-exposé is that the anti-Americanism strikes at the heart of Obama’s message of racial unity, Politico reports; YouTubers have already mixed video of Wright sermons with footage of Malcolm X and others. But the flak will likely bubble peripherally, with a former GOP honcho advising John McCain's campaign to avoid touching the topic directly. (More Barack Obama stories.)