Obama is planning a major race speech tomorrow, according to Ben Smith at Politico.com.

“Barack Obama will give a major speech on ‘the larger issue of race in this campaign,’ he told reporters in Monaca, PA just now. He was pressed there, as he has been at recent appearances, on statements by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. ‘I am going to be talking about not just Reverend Wright, but the larger issue of race in this campaign,’ he said. He added that he would ‘talk about how some of these issues are perceived from within the black church issue for example,’ he said. He also briefly defended Wright from the image that has come through in a handful of repeatedly televised clips… ‘The caricature that’s being painted of him is not accurate,'” Obama is saying.

Now, this is also going to be very interesting to hear this speech tomorrow. Well, if he does this, he’s going to be in Philadelphia tomorrow… Obama, you have no idea what they got planned for you in Philadelphia, by the way.

I’m just talking about the 22nd and the primary election. You have no idea what Ed Rendell is going to do to you. Don’t forget what Ed said: “I don’t think Pennsylvanians are ready to elect a black guy,” and they’re going to get all these blue-collar Philadelphia guys all worked up into a lather between now and April 22nd.

But, if Obama is going to give this speech, maybe go out and say: “It’s tragic so many Americans believe what Reverend Wright is preaching. It’s tragic that there are so many Americans who do blame their country first. It’s tragic that there are people in this country who have been made to feel and think these things,” and then, you know, bash Bush a little bit because that will go over well, and then say you want to be president to end this. You want to be president to stop this!

You want to tell people that we can all come together and unite once again, even though you’ve not shown anybody how you can do it. They don’t care right now. They just love hearing you say you’re going to do it. What happens if he does something like that in this speech tomorrow? I think he’s going to, because he says, “”I’m going to be talking about not just Reverend Wright but the larger issue of race in this campaign.”

He also said he’s going to talk about some of these issues and “how they are perceived from within the black church,” for example. So this is going to be interesting, friends.

Obama’s race speech tomorrow…

It doesn’t have be a long speech on race, but if it’s traditional Obama speech, people are going to love it. If he does his hope and future and all that sort of stuff and makes race the central theme of it. One of the things about the Obama campaign was that he was not a “black” candidate. He’d “transcended race.” His candidacy was not about race.

It was not about how we have overcome, none of those usual things. He was larger than that. Now, when he goes out to make a speech about race, he then thus becomes the Democrat racial candidate. We’ll see. He might be able to do this. Given whoever writes his speeches and how charismatic he can deliver them.

We’ll see if he can pull this off.