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Inez, KY — In what is becoming almost weekly protocol, Sen. McCain condemned officials his own party for going over the line in attacking Barack Obama.

This time the North Carolina Republican party has launched a new TV spot tying local Democrats who support Obama to incendiary remarks made by the Democrat’s longtime preacher, Jeremiah Wright. (below)

The ad declares that Obama is “just too extreme for North Carolina,” noting that local officials should “know better” than to support the Democratic presidential frontrunner.

McCain repeatedly called on the state party to pull the ad Wednesday, vowing again to run a “respectful campaign.”

“We called and asked them not to run that message. It’s not the message of the Republican Party. It’s not the message of my campaign. I’ve pledged to conduct a respectful campaign,” McCain said during a press conference Wednesday. “I can’t dictate to them but I want to be the candidate of everybody. I want to be the candidate of Republicans and Democrats and Independents and people across the political spectrum and I think that by traveling America and listening and learning as well as portraying my vision for the future, I’m going to attract a large number of independents and democrats into our cause because right now the cause is America and right now the cause is that Americans want us to work together to solve these enormous challenges that we face today.”

Then, alongside Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan–who was traveling with the presumptive GOP nominee to his own hometown of Inez–McCain told reporters that local and state GOP officials sometimes lose sight of the ultimate party goals.

“I think sometimes we neglect a fundamental reason why we have political parties–that is to elect our candidates to office,” McCain said aboard his bus. “What I hope is that they would listen to my views that it’s not representative of the Republican Party and what we are trying to be. We are trying to be a party that respects everyone and to show disrespect for any candidate or anyone…is certainly not the party of Abraham Lincoln.”

Informed that the state party is planning to keep the ad on the air, McCain lamented, “unfortunately all I can do is, in as visible way as possible, is disassociate myself from that kind of campaigning.”

The AZ Senator added today that he believes “it is clear” that Obama does not share the world view of Rev. Wright and stated his intention to run an issue-centric campaign.

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It’s an issue that won’t go away. On a day when Clinton supporter and former White House Counsel Lanny Davis questioned Obama’s judgment in choosing Wright as his pastor and urged him to give even more details on his relationship with the controversial pastor in the Wall Street Journal, the Illinois Senator was confronted with the issue at a town hall in Levittown, PA — where he was asked about an award given by a magazine run by Wright’s daughters to controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

“How can praise for any anti-Semitic demagogue be considered a minor difference between you and the reverend?” asked a woman in the audience.

Defending the legitimacy of the question as the crowd grew agitated, Obama replied “It wasn’t a minor difference, it was a major difference.”

“I’ve been very clear about saying that was wrong. And nobody has spoken out more fiercely on the issue of anti-Semitism than I have,” he said. “I didn’t just start doing it lately, which is part of the reason why I have such strong support in the Jewish community in Chicago.”

Citing his desire to unite communities that have been discriminated against, Obama said, “part of my job then as president is to get everybody to recognize that we’ve got a stake in each other, and we’ve got to get past these divisions. And that’s what I’m trying to do in my campaign and hopefully as president as well.”

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Denver, CO — John McCain commented–ever so briefly–on the Jeremiah Wright/Barack Obama controversy at a Thursday media availability.

Asked whether a candidate should be held accountable for the views of his pastor, McCain would say only that “knowing Senator Obama..he does not share the extreme views..that I saw on television.”

McCain was on a week-long trip abroad while the Wright debate was broiling and had yet to comment on the issue since returning to the states. While some Republican officials have expressed privately that Obama’s association with the controversial pastor could pay some political dividends in the fall, McCain campaign officials say they intend to keep the upcoming general election debate centered around policy rather than personal issues.

Two polls out this week by Pew and the Wall Street Journal both show that the Wright controversy has done little damage to Obama’s support.

Hillary Clinton says she’s listening to the will of the people who want her to stay in this race despite a shaky path to the nomination — and is willing to take her fight for delegates all the way to the Democratic National Convention.

In an exclusive interview with Fox SuperAnchor Greta Van Susteren, Senator Clinton argued that the race is far from finished. “People don’t want this to be over,” she said. “That is what people are telling me.”

“Nobody should be writing obituaries on this race, because it is a long way from being over,” she said. “What I’ve seen in my last 14 months on the campaign trail is that every time people count me out — you know, pundits say it’s over, it should be over — the voters bring me back… because they believe that I will actually get up every day in that White House and work my heart out for all of our people.”

Those pundits who argue that the Democratic race is all but done cite Obama’s leads in overall delegates, pledged delegates, and the popular vote - with precious few opportunities for Clinton to make up ground now that Michigan and Florida are unlikely to hold revotes. Hillary blamed her rival Barack Obama for disenfranchising voters in those two states, who went for her in primaries that have since been discounted.

“The Democratic National Committee and I and my campaign, said to the leadership of Michigan, we’re willing to have a revote. I don’t know how that would have turned out,” she said. “Senator Obama said no. He basically turned his back. Here’s somebody who runs a campaign about empowerment, and all of that. Well, hello, what about giving the people of Michigan a chance to have their voices and votes heard?”

Asked about her options for getting those votes counted, the New York Senator raised the specter of a convention battle — a scenario few Democrats can be excited about. “You can always go to the convention. That’s what credential fights are for,” she said. “Lets have the Democratic party go on record against seating the Michigan and Florida delegations three months before the general election? I don’t think that will happen. I think they will be seated. So that’s where we’re headed if we don’t get this worked out.”

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New York, NY—

Barack Obama made an impromptu trip to the back of his plane today greeting reporters after his quick retreat to the Virgin Islands with his family, which he stressed was more of a “long weekend” than a vacation. Even though he told the journalists aboard that he just came back to “say hi” and he was “just chillin’,” the visit quickly turned in to a brief press conference.

He admitted to speaking to his former pastor Jeremiah Wright since the controversy surrounding some of Wright’s more inflammatory preachings came to light, “I have talked to him. I have not asked him to do anything.” He also responded to President Clinton’s comments earlier today when he said that “If a politician doesn’t wanna get beat up, he shouldn’t run for office. “ He agreed with the former President saying it is a “tough business,” but added that he is “proud” of how he has acted during the campaign referring to personal attacks and that he wants to “maintain” that “tone” throughout the campaign:

“I’ve been trying to do in this campaign is to see if we can change the tenor a little bit so that it’s more productive. I have no problem with having pretty fierce arguments about policy. President Clinton was the one who I think is the one that decried the politics of personal destruction, so obviously he recognizes that there is a line that can be crossed. I’m not suggesting it’s been crossed in this campaign but a line can be crossed when you stop focusing on the American people’s business, and it becomes just sport. It all becomes about winning as opposed to getting stuff done. And that’s part of the political culture I’d like to change. I’m not naive to think that it changes is entirely.” Obama told reporters on the flight from Greensboro, N.C. to New York City, “And as much as possible I want to maintain that tone not just through the primary but if I’m fortunate enough though the general election.”

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The topic of the seemingly never-ending nomination battle came up and Obama said that Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen’s proposal of wrapping up the Democratic contest in June was “a good one” adding that more time for the Democratic nominee will help the Democrats in November, “If that has to involve some formal meeting as opposed to everybody saying it’s time for us to make a decision. I think giving whoever the nominee is two or three months to pivot into the general election is extremely helpful as opposed to having this drag on for two more months all the way up to the convention. I think that would be disruptive and hard on the party as well as the nominee. “

The Democratic frontrunner will be delivering a speech on the economy tomorrow morning in New York and hinted that he will cover what “helped trigger the financial crisis and financial problems” and offer “some very specific prescriptions” to try and remedy the situation.

He also weighed in on a letter that several Clinton supporters and Democratic Party donors sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticizing her statements on the roles of super delegates in choosing the Democratic nominee, “As far as I can tell Speaker Pelosi has staked her claim, she hasn’t made an endorsement in the campaign. She like many others have expressed an opinion about how this might ultimately get resolved and obviously her primary concern is making sure that she maintains and ultimately builds her majority in the house. “

Before returning to the front of the plane he told the reporters that he didn’t watch any television in the Virgin Islands and therefore didn’t catch the footage of Hillary Clinton landing in Bosnia as First Lady which discredited her earlier statements saying she ran from the plane while “under sniper fire.” Clinton has since said that she misspoke.

Pundits and journalists labeled Obama’s Philadelphia speech “a test,” a defining moment in Barack Obama’s candidacy, where he would address the issue that could sink his chances of becoming the nation’s first black president – his relationship with his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Over the past week, Wright has been the focus of much scrutiny over his anti-white and controversial statements about the United States of America made at the pulpit in the Chicago church where Obama attends. Which explains all the media attention Obama’s 37-minute-long speech received. Much of his remarks were carried live on the cable television networks, while the campaign had to accommodate press in an overflow room, something usually reserved for the hundreds of supporters who can’t fit into a gymnasium or auditorium.

The speech was written by the senator himself, and described by staffers as very personal in nature. As he has since the story broke last week, Obama distanced himself from Reverend Wright’s “incendiary” remarks, which he called “divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems.”

He acknowledging there were still “nagging questions,” and attempted to explain why he hasn’t further distanced himself from someone who could utter such controversial words.

“Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way. But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man,” he said, reading evenly from a teleprompter.

Obama described his 20-year relationship with his former pastor; how Wright introduced him to the Christian faith and some of the good Wright has done in the community. He also attempted to explain the complexities that often go hand-in-hand with African American churches.

“Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America. And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me,” Obama explained. “I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother.”

Obama assured his audience that this speech was not meant to “justify or excuse” Wright’s comments. “I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork,” he said. But to do so “would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.”

What followed was a lengthy and personal assessment of race in America.

Keep reading below the jump….Watch Obama’s speech here:

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Barack Obama today took questions from the media following a town hall meeting in Monaca, Pennsylvania. The purpose was for Obama to talk about the economy and respond to Senator Clinton’s speech today on the Iraq war.

When faced with multiple questions about his relationship with his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama assured the assembled press corps that he would address our questions at a speech tomorrow in Philadelphia.

“I am going to be talking about, not just Rev. Wright, but just the larger issue of race in this campaign, which has ramped up over the last couple of weeks. So I don’t want to give a full preview – you might not come to the speech,” he told reporters.

The speech, billed as a “major address on race, politics, and unifying our country,” is still being written by speechwriters and the senator himself, who considers this speech to be very personal, per a senior staffer. While he will discuss Wright, the speech was not scheduled in direct response to the storyline per se, but because the issue of race has come up so prominently in the past few weeks, and during the course of the campaign.

At today’s media avail, the senator deferred several questions on Wright to the speech, at one point noting tomorrow’s event will be “a lot more fulsome than a press conference.” He added, “Does that make sense?”

But Obama did allow a small glimpse into his thoughts, saying, “I think the caricature that’s been painted of [Wright] is not accurate. And so part of what I’ll do tomorrow is just to talk a little bit about how some of these issues are perceived from within the black church community, for example, which I think views this very differently,” he said. Trinity Church issued a statement yesterday saying Wright’s character was being “assassinated” by the media.

The only other question he fielded on the subject was when asked how the story has impacted his campaign. “You guys are in a better position to assess that than I am,” he replied.

Watch the exchange with reporters here:

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While her campaign held a conference call to push Barack Obama to release even more information on his relationship with indicted businessman Tony Rezko, Hillary Clinton took the high road in a media avail with reporters aboard her press plane — deferring any and all Rezko-related questions to the Obama campaign. She did the same with queries on Obama’s controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright — who has suggested the US played a role in 911 and the spread of HIV.

Part of the reluctance to talk about supporters may stem from a conversation she had with Obama on the Senate floor on Thursday at the height of the Geraldine Ferraro madness, in which the two senators discussed how to keep the focus of the race on the issues. “We both have had instances during the course of the year with staff members, supporters saying things that we’ve had to reject and repudiate,” she said. “We want to make sure we try to keep this campaign focused on what voters are interested in.”

She also refused to preview her major Iraq speech on Monday — but she did answer a few of our questions, saying that Michigan is “moving in the appropriate direction to have a revote,” a decision she says could be made by the end of the week. And she defended her role in some of the major events of the Clinton administration — including the creation of the Children’s Health Insurance program and the peace talks in Northern Ireland, acknowledging that she may not have been George Mitchell, but saying she “helped the peace process.”

Read the transcript of her remarks to reporters after the jump.

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Washington, D.C. — John McCain’s campaign is pushing back on recent allegations that controversial Ohio pastor, Rev. Rod Parsley, serves as a “spiritual guide” for the GOP presidential nominee.

As Barack Obama continues to take heat for anti-American and racially divisive comments made by his longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, some voices on the left are arguing that McCain should be receiving similar scrutiny for provocative remarks made by Parsley.

The Ohio-based religious leader has made a number controversial statements about Muslims, previously calling Islam an “anti-Christ religion” based on “deception.” In a recent book, he also wrote that the prophet Mohammad “received revelations from demons and not from the true God,” adding that “Allah was a demon spirit.”

According to the campaign, McCain met Parsley for the first time three weeks ago, when the pastor served as an introductory speaker at a February 26 rally in Cincinnati.

McCain praised most of the leaders in attendance, saying of Parsley: “I am very honored today to have one of the truly great leaders in America, a moral compass, a spiritual guide…thank you for your leadership and your guidance. I am very grateful you are here.” (Coincidence note: This was the same event of the infamous Bill Cunningham remarks)

A number of blogs and magazines (inc. here, here, and here) are citing the “spiritual guide” line to make the case that Parsley is an important influence for the Arizona Senator. International publications are also picking up on the endorsement–a headline in the Tehran Times this morning screams, “McCain advisor: Destroy Islam.”

A campaign official disputes that argument, adding that any comparison between the Wright and Parsley situations is “totally absurd.” The official notes that Rev. Wright married Obama, baptized his children and has served as his spiritual adviser for 20 years, whereas McCain received Parsley’s endorsement at one event and has never attended his service.

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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.