Could Kwame Kilpatrick hurt Barack Obama?

Look up Kwame Kilpatrick and Barack Obama on Google, and one of the first hits you'll come up with is a YouTube video uploaded just last week as the embattled Detroit mayor was being ordered to jail.

The video, posted by a Republican YouTube user identified as RightMichigan, shows Barack Obama speaking at an economic event in Detroit some time ago. "I want to first of all acknowledge your great mayor who has been on the frontlines, doing an outstanding job of gathering together the leadership at every level in Detroit to bring about the kind of renaissance that all of us anticipate for this great city," says Obama.

The Illinois senator continues with more praise for Kilpatrick: "We know that he is going to be doing astounding things for many years to come. And I'm grateful to call him a friend and a colleague. And I'm looking forward to a lengthy collaboration in terms of making sure that Detroit does well in the future," he says.

The Republicans are apparently salivating at the chance to connect Obama to Kilpatrick and hurt Obama's chances in the critically important state of Michigan, where the mayor is wildly unpopular throughout the state.

But there's another connection that makes this story even more bizarre. "Although Kilpatrick has distanced himself from Obama and Obama has distanced himself from Kilpatrick, they are both inextricably linked to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And, that is Obama's problem." So says political strategist Steve Mitchell, whose polling and research firm counts Kilpatrick as a former client.

I'm not sure I buy that argument. Mitchell says the three men could be connected in the eyes of the public because both Kilpatrick and Obama have had ties to Wright. As evidence, he cites an introduction that Kilpatrick gave to Rev. Wright the night before the former Trinity United Church of Christ pastor made his controversial appearance at the National Press Club.

In his article, dramatically titled "The Obama/Wright/Kilpatrick Collision," Mitchell predicts the Republicans will dig out the footage of Kilpatrick introducing Wright to make the three black men "look like the Three Musketeers."

I'm sorry, I'm not buying that at all. First of all, it seems like a lot of work to try to link all three men by indirect association. That whole Obama-Wright-Kilpatrick thing is way too confusing for anybody and it doesn't accomplish anything that couldn't be achieved in some other way. 

Second, Senator Obama has already distanced himself from Kilpatrick and Wright. Obama doesn't need Kilpatrick to win Detroit, and he can't win the rest of Michigan if he's connected to the disgraced mayor. But Obama already knows that, and you can bet the senator won't be on any stage or in any room with Kilpatrick (or Wright) at any point in the foreseeable future.

Third, despite the negative public opinion of Wright and Kilpatrick, the Republicans forget that Obama is not like either of these other men. Just listen to Jeremiah Wright's most controversial sermon and tell me if you've ever heard Barack Obama sound anything like this. Or just look at Kwame Kilpatrick's behavior and tell me if you could ever imagine the unflappable Obama finding himself in any similar situation.

Barack Obama is not Jeremiah Wright and he's certainly not Kwame Kilpatrick. This fact seems so obvious that it hardly merits a response. But the one thing these three have in common is that they are all black men, and Republicans run the risk of racism charges if they try to make the case that they all somehow "the Three Musketeers."  

But then again, this is the party that launched a presidential campaign with an appeal to white racists in Mississippi in 1980, that tried to scare white voters with threats of a menacing black rapist named Willie Horton in 1988, and that used a set of white hands holding an employment rejection letter in a television ad to convince angry white voters in North Carolina that "minorities"  were getting ahead through "racial quota laws."

I don't put anything past the Republicans. But even they have to be smart enough to know that a Kilpatrick-Wright-Obama connection story won't work.