Sen. Obama has suffered a recent falling out with the LGBT community over his association with gospel singer and pastor Donnie McClurkin, who sees homosexuality as a personal choice, to court voters in South Carolina. In an attempt to mend fences while resisting calls to drop McClurkin, Obama added the openly gay Rev. Andy Sidden to the ensemble.

Video and transcript, as broadcast on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann on October 29, 2007, can be viewed below.

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TRANSCRIPT:

OLBERMANN: And now to call our own Richard Wolffe, senior White House correspondent for Newsweek magazine. Richard, good evening.

RICHARD WOLFFE, NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE: Good evening, Keith.

OLBERMANN: Haven't we heard from Senator Obama—and we'll start with him—prior to this that we would begin seeing him draw sharper contrast between his views and those of Senator Clinton's? Does this not become a double-edged sword? I'm going to be tougher than I've been, even though I told you that was tough? I mean, is there a candidate who cried tough quality to this?

WOLFFE: Well, you know, Keith, he's been so tough he accuses Hillary Clinton of obfuscating. A candidate who uses the word obfuscate in a New York Times interview isn't really being that tough. And actually, he didn't say—Clinton was obfuscating. He just said that voters would prefer someone who behaved a bit better. Although, he obviously finds attack politics difficult, and maybe that's a good thing for the voters of Iowa or for politics, in general and to be fair to him, he has been drawing sharp distinctions in some of his speeches. What's different now is that he's signaling it, and that itself can pose certain dangers because if you are going to say you are going to draw distinctions, you better deliver.

OLBERMANN: How important in terms of drawing distinctions is the debate on MSNBC tomorrow for Senator Obama? Does he need to hit a solid a blow as he did on the speed bag on the Ellen DeGeneres Show this morning?

WOLFFE: He needs to be as good as that, he needs to be as good as he was on Leno when he said when you know when he was asked if was he discouraged by being behind. He said that Hillary Clinton was not the first politician in Washington to declare mission accomplished a little too early. That's the kind of zinger he has to land. He can do it if he thinks of himself as being not too far above the sound bite. And I think that's been his problem. He sees himself as an intellectual. He doesn't like these debates, but it`s TV, and TV talks when it comes to campaigns.

OLBERMANN: And what about when events necessitate some sort of comment? This gospel event and the preacher and singer, Reverend Donnie McClurkin who headlined this gospel concert for the Obama campaign declaring that God had delivered him from homosexuality. Will that have an impact on the Democratic Party's strong gay and lesbian support and vote and almost base, if you will? And does Obama have to have a stronger response to it than to say, well, I disagree strongly with what Reverend McClurkin said, but you know I didn't dismiss my association with him as part of my campaign?

WOLFFE: Well, he's tied himself in knots here with this. And I was talking to some of his campaign folks over the weekend and none of them are happy about this. However, he has waded into the subject before, he's gone to African-American churches and told them to stop preaching against homosexuality. He even led a Tavis Smiley debate used the word homophobia. No other candidate would be crazy enough to bring up those subjects. He does it and he should get some credit for that. The question is why doesn't he speak up now, more aggressively, more vigorously than he has? And the truth is—that two parts of the Democratic Party - these two important bases of African-American churches and gay rights groups are miles and miles apart. And look, if he thinks he can unite those two parts of the party, then maybe he can unite a country. But it doesn't look like he's done that so far.

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