It May Take the Local GOP Committees to Save McCain

There's a little drama going on in North Carolina over an ad the local GOP wants to run that features Obama's radical pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. As has become custom, John McCain is blasting the ad and requesting it not be run. So far, the NC GOP is ignoring him:

In North Carolina, the Republicans are ready to air a TV ad attacking Sen. Barack Obama for his association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

John McCain, the GOP's presumptive presidential nominee, is calling for a time out. But the state GOP says the ad will go on.

The ad features the high-voltage video of Wright that circulated on the Internet for so long - portraying the now-retired Wright in the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago speaking of God damning America.

McCain, speaking with reporters on his campaign bus during an anti-poverty event in Kentucky, said he is calling on the Tar Heel Republicans to hold their fire: "We asked them not to run it,'' McCain said of the ad. "I'm sending them an e-mail as we speak asking them to take it down. I don't know why they do it. Obviously, I don't control them. But I'm making it very clear that there's no place for that.''

The 30-second spot actually attacks Democratic North Carolina gubernatorial candidates Beverly Perdue and Richard Moore for their endorsements of Obama, but draws Wright in as a character reference of sorts. "They should know better,'' the ad's narrator says of Obama and his backers. "He's just too extreme for North Carolina.''

The controversy surrounding Wright's remarks prompted Obama to address the broader question of race in America -- but Obama, who has disavowed Wright's most "incendiary'' remarks, has refused to "disown'' the man who long served as his pastor.

North Carolina's Republicans view the saga as a powerful political weapon, while McCain maintains that's not the way he wants to wage a campaign. North Carolina, along with Indiana, is one of two states holding Democratic primaries on May 6. Obama is believed to hold a strong advantage there.

The RNC is also sniffing at this ad. I actually think it's a pretty good ad and the kind of thing that the GOP should be running to remind voters of the kind of guy Obama is. McCain can benefit from this in two ways - he gets to denounce the ad and take the high road, and will still benefit when the ad actually runs (and all the free media it's getting doesn't hurt either). I don't think he's clever enough to plan it that way, and throughout the campaign it may take local GOP committees and special interest groups to run the ads that McCain should, but won't. Maybe they can save McCain from himself.

Here's the ad - you can judge for yourself: