Did Barack Obama kick his former pastor to the curb because the preacher was hard-headed?

During the primary elections, Obama seemed reluctant to throw the Rev. Jeremiah Wright under the proverbial bus, even though most of America thought doing so would give his campaign a serious boost at the time. Instead, Obama delivered a major speech on race, in which he described the controversial former pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ as a family member, whom he refused to cut off.   But Wright just wouldn’t go away quietly.

According to a new book by Newsweek's White House correspondent, Richard Wolffe, Obama held a secret meeting with Wright in an attempt to persuade the minister to end his public appearances. At the time, Wright was being used as the wedge to pry Obama away from voters in the battleground states of North Carolina and Indiana. When Wright refused to button up, Obama blasted his former pastor in public, saying he was not the man he had come to admire over the previous two decades.

Obama went on to win North Carolina by 15 points but lost Indiana by just 1 percent.