Harold Meyerson observes that Obama's success in weathering controversy demonstrates his wider appeal to the electorate:
With his appearance at the National Press Club last week, Wright endeavored, whether consciously or not, to swallow both Obama and Obamaism. His onetime parishioner might be telling Americans that it was time to end our historic divisions, and Obama's young followers might be chanting "Race doesn't matter," but Wright would set them all straight. By heightening racial polarization, Wright delivered self-fulfilling prophecies of America's inability to transcend its racism.
On Tuesday, however, those prophecies were not fulfilled. By breaking forcefully with Wright and by refocusing on the economy, Obama came through the worst patch of his campaign to do better among white voters than he had in Ohio and Pennsylvania -- primaries that had preceded Wright's press club outburst. Obama pulled down 40 percent of the white vote in Indiana, an improvement over the 34 percent he won in Ohio and the 37 percent he won in Pennsylvania. He also won 37 percent of the white vote in North Carolina, which, notwithstanding the in-migration of Northern whites to the Research Triangle, is still a Southern state.
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--The Editors
