Why can’t Barack Obama close the deal?

[jamwadmag]

Why can’t Barack Obama close the deal?

FROM CNN’s Jack Cafferty:

Barack Obama missed another chance last night to knock Hillary Clinton out of the race. He beat her in Iowa, she came back and won New Hampshire. He reeled off eleven wins in a row, she came back and won Ohio and Texas. He had another clear shot at her last night and missed. It raises a question that gets more serious with each passing primary.

Why can’t he put her away? Despite outspending Clinton more than 2-to-1 in Pennsylvania and waging a more aggressive campaign in the final days, Obama came up short again with many of the voters who form the traditional base of the Democratic Party. Clinton crushed him among white, blue-collar voters by 69 to 30 percent. She also won older voters, women and whites.

The last 6 weeks have tested Obama in a way he hadn’t been before. There were the comments from his Pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright which he had to address, his own “bitter” remarks, and a debate performance that wasn’t his finest and raised other questions like his ties to William Ayers, the former Weather Underground member.

Obama will get another chance in two weeks to perhaps end this race if he can win in North Carolina and Indiana. And it’s worth noting that he continues to lead where it matters – in delegates, states won, popular vote, and he’s narrowing the superdelegate gap with Clinton.

But she has succeeded in dragging him onto her playground. Obama got more aggressive and more negative in the closing days in Pennsylvania. And that might have been a mistake. He got where he is on a message of hope and the promise for a new kind of politics.

[nohil-billy]

Barack Obama thought that with the "no politics of personal destruction" policy in place he could get through the whole primary season without being properly vetted.

Fat Chance!!!

The "No politics of personal destruction" policy was simply a Clinton dodge to keep the other candidates from bringing up her past. As soon as she needed to take somebody out at the knees, her campaign went into full swing. I don't know how she, her husband and her cast of flying monkey's pulled it off but I'm willing to bet that they're behind every disclosure about Obama. She has been able to take him out of his game by keeping him off balance, frustrated, and on the defensive which was apparent during and after the last debate.

Close it out? He's in way over his head.