Will Rev. Wright Return To The Campaign?

The Huffington Post has flagged comments by John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, that suggest the McCain campaign might bring up Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's controversial former pastor, in the final weeks of the campaign.

McCain has previously declared Wright off limits.

"Look, John McCain has told us a long time ago before this campaign ever got started, back in May, I think, that from his perspective, he was not going to have his campaign actively involved in using Jeremiah Wright as a wedge in this campaign," Davis said on conservative host Hugh Hewitt's radio show. "Now since then, I must say, when Congressman Lewis calls John McCain and Sarah Palin and his entire group of supporters, fifty million people strong around this country, that we're all racists and we should be compared to George Wallace and the kind of horrible segregation and evil and horrible politics that was played at that time, you know, that you've got to rethink all these things. And so I think we're in the process of looking at how we're going to close this campaign. We've got 19 days, and we're taking serious all these issues."

Lewis compared crowds at Republican rallies to those at the rallies of George Wallace, a prominant segregationist in the 1960s. McCain called on Obama to repudiate the remarks at the last presidential debate.

Some Republicans, including GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, have suggested that Wright, the pastor whose controvertial statements (among them "God Damn America") were widely publicized during the primary campaign, should get more attention. As Sam Stein notes, Palin at one point said she doesn't know "why that association isn't discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said."

In recent weeks, the McCain campaign has instead tied Obama to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, with whom Obama's relationship is far more tenuous.