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July 9, 2008 7:45:39 AM CDT



Dems Look Small After Pa. Gutter Fight

Posted Apr 24, 08 1:34 PM CDT in Politics    Most Covered

(Newser) – Barack Obama, once the fresh-faced symbol of a new kind of politics, emerged from the Pennsylvania primary “stale, battered, and embittered,” Joe Klein writes in a stunningly dour piece on the state of the Democratic race in Time. Dragged into a morass of character attacks, some of it  “scurrilous trash,” Obama withered. “There is an immutable pedestrian reality to American politics,” Klein writes. “You have to get the social body language right.”

Voters choose politicians based on “stupid things, like whether you know how to roll a bowling ball, throw back whiskey or wear an American-flag pin.” Obama’s campaign aimed to rise above, but that audacious goal died in Pennsylvania. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, embraced the “shameless rituals of politics,” and was energized as never before. The nomination is his to lose, Klein writes, but he won't win the presidency unless he shakes off his distaste for the sordid realities of the race.

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In this April 10, 2008 file photo, Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., listens as he sits at the Sunrise Cafe in South Bend, Ind.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., pauses for a moment while speaking at a town hall-style meeting in New Albany, Ind., Wednesday, April 23, 2008.   (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks at a town hall-style meeting in New Albany, Ind., Wednesday, April 23, 2008.   (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
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