Senior Obama advisor David Axelrod and Communications Director Robert Gibbs hosted a conference call with reporters Sunday, while the senator himself spent the day with his family. The intent of the call was to focus on Senator Clinton’s lack of transparency. Gibbs outlined four questions directed towards Senator Clinton:

1.    Will the Clinton campaign release their full tax returns, including schedules?
2.    Will Senator Clinton release all of her earmark requests?                                                                  3.    Will the Clinton campaign release the names of all donors to the Clinton foundation and to the Clinton library, and if not, why?
4.    Will the Clinton campaign instruct the Clinton Library to release all of their records?

“The Clinton campaign has made a premium out of making sure that candidates are vetted, that transparency is full, and their failure to continue to answer these questions simply brings us another series of questions, which is what is Senator Clinton hiding and what is lurking in those documents that she believes voters don’t have a right to know?” Gibbs asked.

But during the question and answer period of the call, the reporters switched gears, focusing the latest hot topic in the Democratic race - Obama’s relationship with the controversial Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Axelrod stressed Obama had  been forthright on the controversy and had condemned Wright’s statements, pointing out this was a personally difficult time for Senator Obama. “As you know Reverend Wright married him, introduced him, as [Obama] said, to the church, brought him into the church, into Christianity, baptized his children. So this is a painful thing for him because he condemns the things that Rev. Wright said, but he also knows him as a person, so it’s a difficult matter for him.”

When asked if the story would damage the campaign, Axelrod observed, “Reverend Wright is gone from the church now; he’s no longer the pastor of the church and I think people will hear Senator Obama on this issue, and…they understand that these do not represent his views, and they don’t represent the sum total of what Rev Wright has done over the years or their relationship. I think that this will pass, but we understand there’s a lot of interest in it now.”

Axelrod then asked Gibbs, “Robert, do you have anything to add?” Gibbs replied, “No, I think that covers it.”

Senator Barack Obama often talks about his church, the Trinity Church of Christ in Chicago, on the campaign trail. Normally he refers to the church to assure voters that he is Christian, not Muslim, a notion that has plagued the candidate along the campaign trail. Typically Obama says he has attended the church for 20 years and if one were to go, they’d find a “very conventional African American church” where you would hear gospel music and “people preaching about Jesus.” In Ohio just a few days ago, Obama told voters, “You would feel at home if you were there.”

Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright, who until just a couple weeks ago presided over Trinity’s congregation, officiated Senator and Mrs. Obama’s wedding and baptized their two daughters. In his first book, Dreams from My Father, Obama wrote the pastor had great influence over him in the 1990s, and it was Wright who delivered a sermon entitled “The Audacity of Hope,” which had such an impact on Obama, that he chose to use the phrase as the title of his second book. And, of course, hope continues to be a main theme of the Obama campaign.

But Obama’s pastor has also been a lightning rod for controversy. For starters, Wright’s relationship with Louis Farrakhan, one described as “close” by Senator Obama, has been of concern to many in the Jewish community.

On February 24th, Obama spoke to the Cleveland Jewish Community Leaders group, where he was asked about Wright. Obama noted the pastor occasionally was known to “say controversial things,” adding most of those controversial statements were “directed at the African American community.” Barely a week later, he explained why Wright said things that are considered controversial. “Because he’s considered that part of his social gospel. He was one of the leaders in calling for divestment from South Africa and some other issues like that, and he thinks it’s important for us to focus on what’s happening in Africa, and I agree with him on that.”

Obama assured the Ohio Jewish leaders, “I have never heard an anti-Semitic [statement] made inside of our church. I have never heard anything that would suggest anti-Semitism on part of the Pastor. He is like an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don’t agree with. And I suspect there are some of the people in this room who have heard relatives say some things that they don’t agree with.” He added, “My pastor is going to be retiring over the next month. So my general view, and the reason that I raise this, this is always a sensitive point, what you don’t want to do is distance yourself or kick somebody away, because you are now running for President and you are worried about perceptions, particularly when someone is basically winding down their life and their career.”

But the controversy hasn’t gone away - it’s now bigger and extends beyond the Jewish community. In some of his sermons, Wright has said some pretty shocking things, including inflammatory remarks about both rival Hillary Clinton and the United States, as revealed by FOX News and other networks.

A campaign spokesman issued a statement to reporters, reading, “Senator Obama has said before that he profoundly disagrees with some of the statements and positions of Reverend Wright, who has preached his last sermon as pastor at the church. Senator Obama deplores divisive statements whether they come from his supporters, the supporters of his opponent, talk radio, or anywhere else.”

The story only grew, and so Senator Obama responded with an Op-Ed on the Huffington Post blog site this afternoon, taking a harder stance against his longtime pastor, and clearly hoping this will be the end of the controversy.

Obama said he “vehemently disagreed” with the statements currently in the spotlight. Obama wrote Rev. Wright “has never been my political advisor; he’s been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn. The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation.”

The campaign can’t remember when Obama last attended Trinity, but said it had been “months.” Obama wrote that he would continue a relationship with his church under the care of its new pastor, Otis Moss, III, who took over just last weekend. “While Rev. Wright’s statements have pained and angered me, I believe that Americans will judge me not on the basis of what someone else said, but on the basis of who I am and what I believe in; on my values, judgment and experience to be President of the United States,” Obama concluded.

Senator Clinton and her husband courted Iowa’s African American population today, joining a sparsely attended worship services at the mostly black Mt Carmel Missionary Baptist Church in Waterloo, IA. The city is home to Iowa’s largest black community, but the state as a whole is mostly white; just 2.3% of the state’s 3 million people are African American.

A wicked winter storm that dumped several inches of snow on the roads last night kept much of the congregation at home, but those that did attend stood and applauded when Sen Clinton and the former president entered midway though the service.

Introducing President Clinton, Reverend FT Whitfield said he’d recently seen a contestant on the TV dating show “I Love New York” say he’d met President Clinton, who had given him the tie from around his neck. Rev Whitfield joked “I do like neckties.”

After giving the argument for his wife’s candidacy for a focused three minutes, President Clinton called Christmas a time for giving — and removed his orange necktie to hand over to Rev Whitfield.

Sen Clinton spoke about standing up for those less fortunate, and told the audience that she and her husband are looking forward to being with their family for Christmas — “and giving the people of Iowa a well deserved break from politics.”

But she got in a parting political shot at rival Barack Obama before leaving the good people of Iowa alone for the holidays. “On Christmas eve, I’ll be thinking of the faces and stories of those I’ve met in Iowa,” she said. “I will always do my best to make changes that give people not just hope, but results.”

In Mason City, Iowa, Senator Barack Obama addressed the congregation of United Church of Christ Sunday. “I see that we have with us, and I’m sure it’s a shock for everyone, that we have Senator Barack Obama,” Pastor Patty Aurand said to her small, mostly caucasion congregation.

Obama spoke from the pulpit for just over five minutes, where told the church goers that he found religion, not because he was raised in a religious family, but through his work in Chicago communities. “The values of honesty and hard work and empathy and compassion were values that were spoken about in church, and that I wanted to connect with a larger community than myself, and realized that scripture and the words of God fit into the values that I had been raised in,” he said.

He also acknowledged that, just two weeks from the Christmas holiday, Iowans are being “bombarded” with politics. He assured them that he has not forgotten what this holiday is really about.

After watching the church’s children put on a Christmas performance, Obama, candidate for president and former basketball player, used his skills to participate in the church’s annual mitten toss.

Members of the congregation invited Obama to throw a pair of mittens on a Christmas tree in the corner of the church - the goal being to throw the mittens at the tree and have them stick, the higher up the better (the congregation rewarded good tosses with “oohs and ahs”). The mittens - and scarves and hats - will be donated to local charities.

Pastor Patty gave the ground rules: “You cannot toss them repeatedly. It’s a one chance shot.”

Obama confidently told the group, “I used to play basketball; I’m confident in my skills and think I’m gonna do just fine.”

Here’s how that went for him.