The candidate sounds tired, his speeches seem shop-worn, he shies away from debates. He seems to have shrunk--no longer the avatar of the Age of Aquarius, but more someone trying to "back in" to the nomination before it becomes even more obvious that his constituency--McGovern, plus African-Americans--is not enough to win the fall campaign.
His campaign seems sleep-deprived and off-key. When it's pointed out that Obama has trouble with the white working class--poorly, in fact, with all the non-black working class--his campaign manager says we don't need the working class anyway because they vote Republican. (They don't, they're Democrats, and we can't win without them--and shouldn't.) Even this gaffe by Axelrod was better than a more typical Obama supporter reaction, which is to call the white working class morons and racists.
The campaign sends out a memo to superdelegates that so obviously cherry-picks favorable polls, even old ones, that the most charitable interpretation one can put on it is poor staff work. Meanwhile, his opponent's campaign, having jettisoned the albatross Mark Penn, seems lighter and quicker. Geoff Garin, coming in off the bench for Hillary, zeroed in with some flair.
The mildest campaign attack sends his campaign into a tizzy. Oh, that awful 3:00 ad. Oh, that awful ad that has a split-second of bin Laden in it. How dare she say that she has more experience and is better qualified on national security! Good night, a fly lands on his nose and he acts like he's been hit with a hammer.
As if all that weren't bad enough, Jeremiah Wright enters the stage again. (On Bill Moyers, he says that Obama has to speak like a politician. Does that mean Obama's race speech was just politics?) Opinion within the Obama campaign fractures all over the place. Some say Wright is deliberately sabotaging Obama's campaign? (Is so, what's that all about?) High profile Obama cheerleaders, Eugene Robinson and Bob Herbert, urge Obama to "throw Wright under the bus."
Yes, he's still the frontrunner, if you go by the 100 votes or so that he leads among pledged delegates, which he won by getting all the liberals in Utah and Idaho to show up at a caucus. But, by any normal yardstick, you'd have to say that Hillary Clinton has all the momentum. Reclusiveleftist runs it down:
Old Pro (from '68): You’re talking about nominating the guy who lost New York, California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, and Florida? Jesus! You’re outta your mind!
Violet: But what about his delegates?
Old Pro: Fight it out at the convention if you have to. That’s what conventions are for. Look, you don’t get to be the nominee because you were popular in February in Utah. For chrissake, if you can’t win the Democratic primaries in California or New York or Massachusetts or Florida or Texas or Ohio or Pennsylvania, you don’t get to be the Democratic nominee. Unless you’re Hubert Humphrey. Wait a minute, Humphrey isn’t still alive, is he?
Violet: No. But the party bosses really love Candidate A. They say Candidate B needs to drop out so Candidate A can be the nominee.
Old Pro: They want the winner of all the big states to drop out so the party favorite from February can be the nominee? ...
He's had four tries to "close the deal" and hasn't. His polls are sagging. He has to suffer the indignity of Karl Rove crying crocodile tears for him. Even Markos is on his back for appearing on Fox News and then blowing it once he got there.
Meanwhile, his opponent seems ebullient, and, more and more, people are admiring her grit and toughness. She now leads among independents. In the big states--all except Illinois won by Hillary--she closes well and wins the undecideds. People are starting to notice: The advantage is shifting to Clinton.
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