Obama: The GOP’s assault
Posted: Friday, April 25, 2008 9:05 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Noting a critical Krugman column on Obama is like alerting folks of another plane landing safely at National. Yet despite the predictability of Krugman criticizing Obama, he makes an important point. "After Barack Obama’s defeat in Pennsylvania, David Axelrod, his campaign manager, brushed it off: ‘Nothing has changed tonight in the basic physics of this race.’ He may well be right -- but what a comedown. A few months ago the Obama campaign was talking about transcendence. Now it’s talking about math. ‘Yes we can’ has become ‘No she can’t.’”
The Los Angeles Times takes a look at the slow trickle of GOP made TV and radio ads that are critical of Obama. "The flurry of attacks underscores how Republicans and their allies are sensing opportunity in the increasingly battered image of Obama, whom many Democrats have viewed as their best hope for appealing across ideological lines and helping their party win in conservative areas. The ads also are playing into a debate among Democratic officials about Obama's electability in November, a discussion that gained urgency after his 9-percentage-point loss to Hillary Rodham Clinton in this week's Pennsylvania primary. That contest provided more evidence that the Illinois senator has had trouble winning over seniors and working-class white voters, who are seen as important to a Democratic victory this fall.”
National Journal’s Victor writes a feature story about whether Obama can take a punch. “‘I don’t think we know yet whether he can take a punch,” observed Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill). Guillory, a former reporter who has written extensively about politics, added, ‘I think that is what is making a lot of Democrats nervous.” More: “‘McCain won’t do it, but the Republican satellite groups will put Reverend Wright on television,’ Shrum said. ‘I think it is a lot like the Bill Clinton draft records in 1992. It came out and it hurt him some in the primaries, along with the other stuff, but by the time of the general election … people just dismissed it and said this election is about my job, about health care, and a whole set of other issues.’”
The AP questions the narrative that Obama’s not tough enough. “Obama came out on top [in his first legislative contest] in that confrontation but not through a head-to-head vote. Instead, he capitalized on his opponent's mistakes to get her thrown off the ballot so that his name was the only choice presented to voters. His willingness to knock his opponent off the ballot, say Illinois political insiders, was an early demonstration of the tenacity that has helped him in the primary process against Clinton thus far.” As this Democratic nomination comes down to a fight over rules, it may not be Clinton that has all the tricks up her sleeve.
Politico's Harris and Kuhn note Obama's dealing with two punctuation marks right now: a question mark (about his vulnerabilities) and an asterisk (on how he wins the nomination math-wise). "This is the significance of Indiana. Obama can and probably will win the Democratic nomination no matter what happens in the May 6 primary. But a victory in the Hoosier state is critical to Obama gaining at least some of the political and psychic momentum that ordinarily flow to a nomination winner. A loss -- on top of a succession of losses in Pennsylvania, Ohio and other big states -- would mean the nominee would enter the general election defined to an unusual degree by his vulnerabilities."
How is the Rev. Wright interview getting played out? The New York Post: “O's race talk is just politics: Wright.”
“Barack Obama's biggest headache is back. His lightning-rod former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is poised to reignite one of the most damaging controversies for the presidential candidate by jumping into the spotlight with a PBS interview Friday night and a Washington speech next week.”
Is this the most devastating part of what Wright said in his interview? “Obama, in a widely praised speech on race and politics last month, denounced the controversial remarks but said he could not denounce Wright, instead describing the historical reasons for his spiritual mentor's anger. Asked about that speech, Wright replied, ‘He's a politician, I'm a pastor. I do what I do. He does what politicians do.’”
