Ever since Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton started running for president, her team has argued that she is more electable than Senator Barack Obama: more experience, as first lady and senator; more spine, after years fighting Republicans; and more popular with key voter blocs, like women, Hispanics and the elderly.
Yet this week, Mrs. Clinton’s electability argument has taken on a new dimension that for her and her advisers is both discomfiting and unpredictable, but also potentially helpful. Some Democrats are now looking at the racially incendiary and anti-American remarks of Mr. Obama’s longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and wondering if that association could weaken Mr. Obama as a nominee.
Clinton advisers have asked their allies not to talk openly about the issue, for fear it could create a voter backlash and alienate black Democrats. They also say Mr. Obama, of Illinois, is in enough trouble over Mr. Wright that they do not need to foment more — and, besides, cable television is keeping the issue alive.
On Thursday night, the Obama campaign, to shift the spotlight to the Clintons, provided The New York Times with a picture of Mr. Wright and President Bill Clinton at the White House in 1998 at a breakfast meeting with religious leaders hours before the Starr report on the Monica Lewinsky scandal was made public.
'Kind message'
The campaign also provided a letter Mr. Clinton sent to Mr. Wright the next month thanking Mr. Wright for a “kind message” and saying he was touched by his prayers. A spokesman for the campaign said it was providing the information to show that Mr. Wright was well respected by many, including Mr. Clinton.
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton said Thursday night that the campaign did not believe the Clintons had met with Mr. Wright before the speech or were aware of any views expressed by him at his church.
Phil Singer, a Clinton campaign spokesman, said in an e-mail message, “In the course of his two terms in office, Bill Clinton met with, corresponded with and took pictures with literally tens of thousands of people.”
Despite the complications and risks of engaging on the issue, some allies of Mrs. Clinton said they were privately pushing the issue with key party members to lift her candidacy. And at least one prominent surrogate of hers has gone off message: Lanny Davis, a former Clinton White House lawyer, has publicly challenged Mr. Obama to answer questions about his views on racist speech and Mr. Wright.
Questions sidestepped
Mrs. Clinton, of New York, sidestepped reporters’ questions on Thursday about Mr. Wright and electability. At one point, she turned from a reporter, pursed her lips and shook her head no. A spokesman said later she was unaware of anyone involved in the campaign pushing the Wright issue with superdelegates.
As a matter of strategy, top Clinton allies and advisers said Thursday they were treading carefully when it came to talking about Mr. Wright with superdelegates, the elected officials and party leaders whose votes could determine the Democratic nomination. They said they were aware of the potential repercussions of pressing the issue too directly but were convinced this was going to be a key factor in superdelegates’ making a judgment on Mr. Obama’s electability.
The difficulty, Clinton advisers and political analysts said, was that a race-based argument against Mr. Obama’s electability was unappealing and divisive and cut against the image of the Democratic Party and its principles. And the argument could alienate black voters.
“It would be very difficult for her or the Clinton campaign publicly to pair electability with Reverend Wright because it’s so inflammatory,” said Ronald W. Walters, a government and politics professor at the University of Maryland.
The sensitivities surrounding the Wright-Obama relationship were laid bare on Thursday when a Clinton ally, Geraldine A. Ferraro, decried being lumped in with “this racist bigot,” a reference to Mr. Wright, for her comments that Mr. Obama enjoyed an advantage in the campaign because he was a black man.
And the campaign of Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, suspended an aide for circulating a video of Mr. Wright’s comments that portrayed Mr. Obama as unpatriotic.
Still, Republican strategists said the episode with Mr. Obama could give Mr. McCain and his supporters a potent line of attack, a way to challenge Mr. Obama’s patriotism by questioning why he did not challenge Mr. Wright when Mr. Wright made statements attacking the nation.
No flag on lapel
Republicans have offered hints of other ways they will try to come after Mr. Obama in this area, pointing to him saying why he had stopped wearing an American flag on his lapel and how his wife, Michelle, had said at a rally for her husband that “for the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country.”
Three Clinton surrogates and donors said Thursday that Mr. Wright had been a natural topic in conversations with superdelegates and donors. They said the possible effects on Mr. Obama’s electability were a legitimate concern for Democrats who want to win in the fall. One of the surrogates echoed a top Clinton ally, Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, who said in February that some white voters in his state would not vote for Mr. Obama because they were not ready to back a black candidate.
“The Republicans made John Kerry look like a coward in 2004,” said the surrogate, a close ally of Mrs. Clinton from New York, who has talked to superdelegates about Mr. Wright and who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations. “The Reverend Wright attacks wouldn’t even look like ‘Swift-boating.’ It’s just putting his comments out there.”
But some black Democrats said the Clinton camp could face serious consequences if it was seen exploiting the Wright matter, given the unpredictable reactions from black voters in general election battlegrounds like Michigan and Ohio.
“I think the Clinton campaign has to show leadership and sensitivity here; this cannot become part of the mix with the drug stuff and the South Carolina stuff,” said Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist, referring to past attacks on Mr. Obama by the Clinton campaign.
“I am too close to my friends in the Clinton campaign to accuse any of them, including the senator, of trying to benefit from this,” she said. “But race is obviously in the water right now, and everyone needs to be careful.”
This story, Clinton Treats Obama Pastor With Extreme Caution, originally appeared in the New York Times.