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.

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“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.