Like many small-town preachers, my granddaddy welcomed the occasional politician to the old Baptist parsonage in Boiling Springs, N.C., lo those many decades ago. It was fairly standard procedure in those days of door-to-door politics for candidates for county office or even governor to ask upon arriving in a small town, "So, who's the minister here?" And they would make a courtesy call.

The visits were short and rarely if ever included any discussion of endorsements. The candidates typically just wanted to make sure that when word got around, as it did to most everybody in a little community, that word would include mention that the candidate of course went by the preacher's house. I don't recall whether Granddaddy ever endorsed anybody. He generally was not of the view that pastoring and politics made a sensible or even appropriate mix.

My old Pappy's philosophy is probably looking pretty good right now to Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain.

One, Obama, saw an unwitting mix, not of his making, blow up like a badly done lab experiment in a Broughton High School science class from the late 1960s. (The minute details of that experiment escape me now, although as I recall there was a little damage to appliances, some smoke and a teacher who was certain that, though I might yet have some success in life, there would be no need to book a flight to Sweden some years thereafter to accept the Nobel in chemistry.)

Obama, like this failed chemist, saw some of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's words from the pulpit, hard-hitting and flammable, bubble up and spill as if they were chemicals in that beaker. The Illinois senator attempted a cleanup and did pretty well, but then the reverend later shared a few thoughts on politics and race that roiled things up again, and Obama felt he had to repudiate him, barring him from the lab, you might say.

Sen. McCain, courting the Christian conservative vote Republicans believe is a consistent bloc of their "base," suffered an embarrassment at the hands of the Rev. John Hagee of Texas, who offered a stentorian endorsement of McCain. It was something the senator had sought and about which he expressed great delight.

Alas for the senator, a Web site turned up Hagee sermonizing as to how Hitler was a tool used by God so that Jews would go to the Promised Land -- at least, that was an interpretation, although Hagee defended himself. McCain then distanced himself from Hagee. (And Hagee later withdrew his endorsement.)

And so on the subject of which candidate is God's man in this election, McCain and Obama have reached what might be called a rather unexpected draw. (Democrat Hillary Clinton, still battling Obama, counts herself a serious Christian but is not looking like McCain's opponent right now.)

The firestorm that erupted over the Rev. Wright's comments, and his follow-up comments, and the whirlwind McCain might have experienced had he not quickly pulled back from Hagee, aren't really the fault of the preachers. They're just saying what they think, without much caring what anybody else thinks. Preachers with big stages often feel obliged to "push the envelope" when it comes to their views, and often they're not a bit shy about a little philosophical, political pugilism. Ultimately, though, they do report to the people in their congregations. If those folks think the preachers need to calm down a little, they can let them know.

It happens that in Wright's case, his association with Obama amplified that microphone in his Chicago church beyond what might have happened were Obama still in the Illinois legislature. McCain sought the endorsement he got, and thanks to the Web and the 24-hour news culture, Hagee got a lot of attention for tossing his support to the Arizona Republican -- but the attention kept up after his previous words had turned the whole experience sour. Uh-oh.

In the end, most Americans won't be thinking about the views of a few high-profile ministers when they go in the booth. They'll be pondering the war in Iraq, health care, their job security, their kids' prospects for education and work, gasoline prices and which candidate can put the country on the right track. How much their religious beliefs, or their religious leaders, influence that decision is entirely up to them. Although in times like these, a little prayer couldn't hurt.