Jeremiah Wright's October Surprise?

When last we left Senator Obama's religious adviser the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, he had just been thrown under the bus by his famous pupil after "acting out" at the national press club. The Reverend has an interesting epilogue to his relationship with the democratic Messiah. A book and a book tour timed for the month prior to the election. Wright is a proud man and something of a Star in his own right. Now I am not much of a betting man, but if I was, I would put down dollars that the preacher's memory of the Democratic candidate will be skewed by his desire for the Senator to be embarrassed:

Reverend Wright plans an October surprise James Forsyth

New York Magazine has done a special issue this week on race and the US election. There’s lot of good stuff in the package but this line from John Heilemann’s cover story stood out to me:

“In October, Obama’s former pastor, Wright, will publish a new book and hit the road to promote it”

This is a huge problem for Obama. It means that the whole controversy over Wright’s racialist sermons and his friendship with Obama is going to be returning to the news agenda just as undecided voters begin to make up their minds.

Wright’s performance at the National Press Club back in April showed that Wright revels in the national spotlight and doesn’t care if his performances hurt Obama. If the Obama campaign and mutual friends of the two men couldn’t rein Wright in then, they have little hope of doing so in October considering that following Wright’s National Press Club performance Obama said that Wright’s views ‘rightly offend all Americans, and should be denounced’.