The nature of the politics at play in the African-American community is what the media consistently misses in its coverage of the Wright/Obama controversy. The precinct-by-precinct model of the Obama campaign by-passed the leadership-organizational role that black churches and the black clergy played during the civil rights movement and with which they leveraged influence long after. This is the Jackson, Lowry, Young and yes, Wright, generation.

This generation is accustomed to being called on to represent the views of the African-American community whenever an issue of race comes up. More importantly, this generation served to broker the support of the black community within the Democratic Party – not just in presidential races, but state and local ones, too. The Obama campaign has eclipsed those roles.

Obama, Patrick, Patterson and others of their generation are gradually pushing this ‘civil rights generation’ off center state in order to assume a new type of post-racial, post red/blue state political leadership.

This has huge consequences. The women who organized last year’s church bake sale may be out canvassing for Obama in 2008. The church tithes set aside by congregants may be making their way into the huge small donor network that Obama built.

Surely Obama would rather have had Rev. Wright ride retirement into the beautiful sunset. But the stakes were too high. Rev. Wright struck back. His histrionic Q&A at the National Press Club, validated by a room packed with his supporters, were the final gasps of an old guard giving way to the new.

Obama should be hailed for his deliberate approach More than Wright’s over-the-top rhetoric with which he and many others at Trinity do not agree; more than the relation between pastor and congregant, the lasting story here is the skill with which Obama has used the Trinity flair-up to cement new generation’s leadership and ‘post-racial’ political model within the African-American community.

Trinity, with 8,000 members, helped Obama launch his political career. Ironically, his campaign is closing the door on the hardened racial politics of the past as articulated by Rev. Wright. The congregants at Trinity are right behind him. This is a seismic shift. It is why Obama stayed with Trinity for 20 years. He formulated his own views against some of the more radical inclinations of Rev. Wright.

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