US:WHILE AN eager young woman was working her way through an earnest introduction at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, Barack Obama sat on a stool in the crowded gymnasium and glanced at his watch. The Democratic presidential frontrunner is increasingly preoccupied with time as he seeks to maintain his lead in the final weeks of this 15-month campaign.
"There are babies who have been born and are now walking and talking since I started running for president," he told the crowd, adding a little too wearily that he had shaken hundreds of thousands of hands and kissed hundreds of babies in the meantime.
Mr Obama was making his first public appearance since the return of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, to the public stage had set off a frenzy of hand-wringing among Washington pundits. At the National Press Club on Monday, Rev Wright defended his most controversial statements, said that criticism of him was an attack on the African-American church and suggested that Mr Obama had only distanced himself from the pastor out of political expediency.
In Wilmington, Mr Obama made a brief statement to reporters about the furore, which had already dominated two news cycles and was clearly doing his campaign no good.
"Some of the comments that Rev Wright has made offend me, and I understand why they offend the American people. He does not speak for me. He does not speak for the campaign," he said.
"Many of the statements that he's made, both that triggered this initial controversy and that he's made over the last several days, are not statements that I have heard him make previously. They don't represent my views."
Mr Obama didn't mention Rev Wright at his town hall rally but he criticised the media for focusing on "distractions" and seeking out conflict rather than considering policy issues.
"Lately, my opponents have been trying to make this election about me instead of about you. They've been trying to say, 'Well, we don't know him that well, we don't know what he believes' - despite the fact that I wrote two books. It's all there - what I believe and what my story is," he said.
Hillary Clinton yesterday won the endorsement of North Carolina's governor Mike Easley and her campaign is enjoying the renewed controversy over Rev Wright so much that it is saying nothing about it in public. A new Associated Press poll puts Mrs Clinton nine points ahead in a match-up with John McCain but shows Mr Obama statistically tied with the Republican.
Mr Obama stepped up his condemnation of Rev Wright yesterday, saying he was saddened by the "spectacle" of his former pastor's Washington appearance.
"The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago," Mr Obama said.
"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia explaining that he's done enormous good. ... But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the US government somehow being involved in Aids... There are no excuses. They offended me. They rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced."
For all Mr Obama's current troubles, he remains decisively ahead among pledged delegates and has seen dozens of superdelegates move his way in recent weeks. He remains a peerless political athlete, as he showed in Wilmington, where he held the crowd of about 5,000 rapt for 90 minutes.
Mr Obama's campaign is better funded and a great deal better organised than Mrs Clinton's and at Wilmington, staff took names, addresses and mobile phone numbers from everyone who came to the rally. In North Carolina, voters can register at the same time as they vote and Mr Obama hopes to attract hundreds of thousands of new voters, as well as Independents and disaffected Republicans.
The controversy over Rev Wright did little to dampen the enthusiasm of Mr Obama's supporters in Wilmington. Lynn Bryant said that, although she once admired Mrs Clinton, she was now committed to the Illinois senator.
"I liked her up until all the negative ads, you know. I thought a lot of her, but now that I see her tactics, it just turns me off," she said.