On a noisy, windy tarmac in Wilmington, North Carolina, Barack Obama took a few minutes to address his traveling press corps - despite running more than an hour behind schedule. “I wanted to make sure that I made myself available for you guys briefly. We’re running about an hour late, but obviously since Reverend Wright had his Press Club event today, I assume you guys wanted a response or a reaction of some sort,” he said, standing in front of his campaign plane, jets noisily running.

“Yeah,” someone in the gaggle responded.

“I have said before and I will repeat again that what some of the comments that Reverend Wright have made offend me, and I understand why they’ve offended the American people. He does not speak for me. He does not speak for the campaign, and so he may make statements in the future that don’t reflect my values or concerns,” he said. Instead, Obama said his intention was to focus on the issues important to the American people along the campaign trail.

In the middle of his response, a helicopter rudely landed nearby, causing the senator to pause and smile. “Alright anyway, so I’m gonna take three questions and then we gotta go,” he declared.

When asked if he felt betrayed by his former pastor, Obama laughed. “What the last 3 days indicate is that we’re not coordinating with him. He’s obviously free to speak his mind,” he observed.

How will he handle the Wright issue going forward? Obama noted that most of the voters he’s met along the campaign trail have not been asking him about Reverend Wright, but about issues like the economy, gas prices, and health care. Since the Wright scandal, only a few questioners have asked Obama about his former pastor out of hundreds of questions fielded - not including those from reporters, of course.

“I think people will understand that I am not perfect and that, you know, there are gonna be, you know, folks in my past like Reverend Wright that may cause them some concern but that ultimately, you know, my 20 years of service and the values that I’ve written about and spoken about and promoted are their values, and what they’re concerned about and that’s what this campaign has been about and what it’s going to continue to be about,” he said.

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.