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On the campaign trail, CBS' Dean Reynolds and ABC's Jake Tapper followed up on Barack Obama's major formal address on his former pastor in particular and race relations in general. Reynolds reported that Hillary Rodham Clinton's operatives are warning superdelegates that "Obama's relationship with his acid-tongued former minister makes him politically vulnerable" or as Tapper paraphrased their pitch: "Obama has too much baggage to win in November." Tapper pointed out that when Rodham Clinton herself was asked directly whether her campaign was using Wright as a talking point with superdelegates she "only shrugged."
Both ABC's Tapper and CBS' Reynolds cited a YouTube video, made by a conservative talkradio producer and disseminated by a low-level aide in John McCain's campaign that links Obama to the Rev Jeremiah Wright to the Black Panthers to Malcolm X. McCain suspended the side in "one of several episodes in which aides, supporters or surrogates have crossed a line and forced McCain to apologize or take action," as Reynolds observed.
On NBC, Ron Allen took an arithmetic look at Rodham Clinton's prospects of arriving at the convention in Denver with a delegate lead--or even a lead in the popular vote: "To get ahead she needs to change the math" and that involves not only running up the vote in a state like Pennsylvania that she is expected to win but also securing a second vote in Michigan and Florida that the Democratic Party will accept as legitimate. "As of now Obama has won more votes, states and delegates, very tough numbers for Clinton to beat."
