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.