The New Obama Zeitgeist?
Scanning the political trades this morning, it seems as if a new zeitgeist has emerged to describe the progression of the Democratic race: Obama's still likely to win the nomination, but he has emerged from Pennsylvania weakened, his message stale and worn; his appeal to white blue collar voters still lags; his base of support seemingly unchanged (university towns, state capitals, college kids, affluent Dems, African Americans.); his candidacy has not succeeded in breaking through the inviolate and submerged racial prejudice of older voters. The usual caveats: I'm describing what others see, not what I think ought to be, or what is.
On Race:
“I’m sure there is some of that,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior political adviser, as he considered how race was playing among voters in late primary states. Mr. Axelrod said Mrs. Clinton’s biggest advantage had been among older voters, “and I think there is a general inclination on the part of the older voters to vote for what is more familiar.” He added: “Here’s a guy named Barack Obama, an African-American guy, relatively new. That’s a lot of change.”
Indeed, as Soren Dayton points out, Clinton lost the majority black wards and university wards in Philly by significant margins.
Karl Rove digs in:
Mr. Obama's call for postpartisanship looks unconvincing, when he is unable to point to a single important instance in his Senate career when he demonstrated bipartisanship. And his repeated calls to remember Dr. Martin Luther King's "fierce urgency of now" in tackling big issues falls flat as voters discover that he has not provided leadership on any major legislative battle.
Mr. Obama has not been a leader on big causes in Congress. He has been manifestly unwilling to expend his political capital on urgent issues. He has been only an observer, watching the action from a distance, thinking wry and sardonic and cynical thoughts to himself about his colleagues, mildly amused at their too-ing and fro-ing. He has held his energy and talent in reserve for the more important task of advancing his own political career, which means running for president.
Obama, who entered the primary as a fresh breeze and left it stale, battered and embittered — still the mathematical favorite for the nomination but no longer the darling of his party. In the course of six weeks, the American people learned that he was a member of a church whose pastor gave angry, anti-American sermons, that he was "friendly" with an American terrorist who had bombed buildings during the Vietnam era, and that he seemed to look on the ceremonies of working-class life — bowling, hunting, churchgoing and the fervent consumption of greasy food — as his anthropologist mother might have, with a mixture of cool detachment and utter bemusement. All of which deepened the skepticism that Caucasians, especially those without a college degree, had about a young, inexperienced African-American guy with an Islamic-sounding name and a highfalutin fluency with language. And worse, it raised questions among the elders of the party about Obama's ability to hold on to crucial Rust Belt bastions like Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Jersey in the general election — and to add long-suffering Ohio to the Democratic column.