Is Barack on the Rocks?

Punditry ponders electability gaps, buyer's remorse, next moves for Obama
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 23, 2008 2:19 PM CDT
Is Barack on the Rocks?
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., waves to media members on her campaign plane.   (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

How bad is the Pennsylvania result for Team Obama and what does it mean going forward? Three writers think it through:

  • “He can’t finish her off,” says Dan Kennedy in the Guardian. Obama scooped up presumptive-nominee status too soon, and now Americans have “buyer’s remorse”—realizing Clinton is the scrappier fighter. But it’s probably too late to tap the former first lady.

  • More weaknesses in the Obama argument keep presenting themselves, sighs John Judis in the New Republic. His base looks ever more like George McGovern’s—as the candidate, formerly seen as middle-of-the-road, looks increasingly leftist. More working-class tests await in Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia.
  • Walter Shapiro notes in Salon that despite the incessant campaigning, demographic groups keep performing as initially expected. The longer Obama goes without a big victory, the less inevitable he looks.
(More Barack Obama stories.)

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