Kinship vs. fellowship

For the Rev. Ray Hammond, the race for the Democratic nomination for president has turned personal in a way that he could never have anticipated.

Hammond, pastor of Bethel AME Church and one of the city's most prominent clergymen, does not have a declared preference in the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

He does have close ties to the man whose incendiary rhetoric has dominated the campaign in recent days. The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. is Hammond's cousin. As the controversy over snippets of Wright's old sermons has evolved, Hammond has taken more than a passing interest.

For him, the battle over Wright, which has hampered Obama's bid to lock up the nomination, is really not about Wright.

Drawing a parallel between Obama and 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry, Hammond said, "This is Swiftboating for a guy who goes to church."

Hammond was watching as Wright emerged from weeks of silence to speak for himself. He was impressed by the pastor's PBS interview with Bill Moyers and his speech before the Detroit branch of the NAACP.

Monday's sparring session with the National Press Club struck Hammond as misguided, though he stressed that he has not yet seen the entire session.

In that speech, Wright suggested that one of his motives in speaking up was that the attacks on him had become attacks on the black church as an institution. Hammond only partly agrees with that assessment.

"People are reacting to a part of the black church tradition that most people don't know and don't understand," Hammond said. "In the first couple of days, Jeremiah did a good job of helping people understand that."

However, he added, "I don't think whoever launched this really cared much about the black church. The issue here is the judgment, as they see it, of Barack Obama. This isn't about Jeremiah Wright."

Wright has been used, in Hammond's view, to undermine a key Obama argument against Clinton: that his judgment is more valuable than her experience.

"I really think part of the challenge Obama faces is that a lot of people are inspired by him, but they don't really know him - he hasn't been around long enough. So they're searching for any clue about who he is. . . . So everything takes on heightened meaning."

Hammond said his roles in his church and in the Ten Point Coalition preclude him from supporting specific political candidates. He's been disheartened, though, by the long and increasingly bitter fight.

"It started out very energetic, with lots of new voters, and it's become a slog," he said. "The longer it goes on, the more of a bitter edge you see developing. You get the feeling that it's a portent of what's going to be a pretty tough general election. After 16 years, I'm tired of this."

That said, he has been captivated by a contest that he didn't expect to live to see. "For them to be pitted against each other against the backdrop of the war and the economy, it's been incredible."

This is a campaign that has prompted deep emotional responses, leaving Hammond hesitant to talk about it at all. "I'm treading real lightly on this one, because there is so much hope and fear and disappointment and pain."

There is also, in what has become a full-blown split between Obama and Wright, a reflection of a generational divide that has always been present in this campaign. It is a rift between civil rights warriors and Obama's upbeat message of healing and reconciliation.

Hammond noted that he and his cousin are 20 years apart in age, same family, different generations. Hammond and Wright visit in Chicago, talk occasionally, and have shared the pulpit at Wright's megachurch, Trinity United Church of Christ.

And in the past few days, Hammond has tried unsuccessfully to reach him. "I called Jeremiah," he said, "to tell him we're praying for him."

Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.