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With just nine contests remaining, the Democratic presidential nomination race is getting even more interesting. Just days ago, it seemed that the only way that Barack Obama could fail to clinch his party's nod would be to leave his wife and move in with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

That is, until Wright took to the lectern at the National Press Club to launch what amounted to a kamikaze attack on Obama's candidacy,

sputtering nonsense that must have left the senator's campaign operatives wondering whether they had accidentally tuned their TVs to the political horror channel.

Some suggest that the reverend's rant could breathe new life into Hillary Rodham Clinton's nearly moribund campaign and allow her to wrestle the nomination from Obama's grasp.

To be sure, the delegate arithmetic for Clinton is seemingly impossible. The NBC News count shows Obama with 1,732 delegates (1,490 pledged and 242 superdelegates) to Clinton's 1,599 (1,334 pledged plus 265 superdelegates), an advantage for the front-runner of 133 delegates. With a total of 4,048 delegates, 133 doesn't sound like much of a lead, but in the Democrats' proportional delegate-selection process, where changes are measured in millimeters, Obama indeed has a strong advantage.

Anthony Corrado, a political scientist and delegate-selection expert at Colby College, estimates that Clinton needs to win 69 percent of the remaining pledged delegates to catch up. To do so, she would have to get about 66 percent of the popular vote in the nine remaining primaries. So far, Clinton has reached that level of support in only the Arkansas primary. Superdelegates have not been helping her close the gap. Democratic consultant John Edgell's superdelegate count shows that 100 superdelegates have endorsed since March 1: 77 of them went for Obama, and 23 for Clinton.

Inadvertently or not, Clinton got one of her biggest boosts of the year from Wright, whose Monday speech seemed designed to pry the nomination from Obama's fingers. Many Democrats, and a considerable number of independents, have long assumed that in a general election Obama would not be much hampered by his race, his unusual name, his Muslim father, or his relative inexperience in dealing with national issues.

Certainly, young, well-educated Democrats seem the most open to Obama's exotic blend, just as they are to cutting-edge technologies and the newest music. "Change" is not a four-letter word to young latte Democrats.

But to downscale, high-school-educated, white Democrats who make less than $50,000 a year and are more likely to spend money at Wal-Mart than Starbucks, much about Obama seems a bit odd. And Wright's diatribe seems to be reinforcing stereotypes with these voters, presenting Obama with his gravest crisis yet as a candidate.

Arithmetically, Obama still seems unstoppable, but the past few days have made his unusual profile tougher for older and working-class white Democrats to embrace. Even before Wright grabbed the spotlight, presumptive GOP nominee John McCain was leading Obama by 6 points among voters with a high school education or less.

Everything that Clinton could have wished for seems to have happened over the last few weeks. The news media finally got around to scrutinizing the senator from Illinois more intensely. Obama stumbled in the last debate, appearing defensive and bordering on being testy. Clinton followed up her victories in Ohio, Rhode Island, and the primary side of the "Texas two-step" primary-caucus combination with a solid 9-point win in Pennsylvania. Then Wright turned in his performance.

The math is still the math, but a race that seemed to be over may not be over. What happens in Indiana and North Carolina on Tuesday could tell us a lot about how quintessentially middle-class states now view Obama.

COMMENTS

• BEE BEE I heard all I want to hear about liberation theology from Reverent Wright. Mickey57 Posted May 12, 2008 5:03 PM
• Dan, et. al: Let me say this once - Jeremiah Wright did not "damn" America. What he said, and what people would have heard had they listened to the sermon in its ENTIRETY, was Rev. Wright saying that when America does something right, we are so quick to say, "God bless America". On the other hand, when America does something wrong, do we say, "God damn America"? That's what the man said. He didn't just stand up there and say "God damn America" just for the sake of saying it. Let's not be ridiculous. That wouldn't even have made sense. He used the phrase to say that we shouldn't be so busy praising and blessing America when America is engaged in wrongdoing. And to Mickey57 - Take some time and find out what liberation theology is. It's not hatred and racism. It preaches against those very things, which happen to be the very things that the oppressed have suffered at the hands of their oppressors. bee bee Posted May 8, 2008 1:22 PM
• bee bee your simply wrong when the pastor makes racist remarks its time to get up and walk out. If the pastor damm's the nation its time to walk out. Sitting there and let them spew hate is just as wrong as saying it your self. I don't recall King using those terms. Its time for you and others to stand up and say this is wrong and stop enabling the likes of Wright who's WRONG dan m ketter Posted May 7, 2008 8:35 PM