OBAMA: In the Weeks to Come, A Costly Battle on Two Fronts

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Candidates React: Obama

Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) addresses his supporters from Houston, Tx. after Tuesday's primary election results filter in.

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But more broadly, Republicans are poised to offer what they consider a stark contrast between McCain's lifetime of experience -- in war, in the Senate, in politics -- and a caricature of a young, inexperienced neophyte with little but fancy rhetoric to offer.

That is a line of attack Clinton has tried for weeks. But McCain's advisers say they think their candidate will be more effective in convincing the public that Obama is not ready to lead the nation, especially during an economic downturn and while waging two wars overseas.

As part of the wide-ranging case they have begun constructing, they plan to follow some of the threads that Clinton has already exposed: Obama's ties to Chicago businessman Antoin "Tony" Rezko; the senator's failure to hold hearings on Afghanistan in his Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee; his decision to repeatedly vote "present" in the Illinois legislature.

A senior Obama strategist, David Axelrod, acknowledged that he is receiving varied advice from Democrats, including changing Obama's stump speech to emphasize his American roots and pushing for a second round of changes in the nation's welfare laws, this time aimed at stray fathers.

If Obama finds himself forced to defend his patriotism before a skeptical electorate, he will be in deep trouble, Vilsack warned. But, he added, "what's the alternative, ignore it? We paid a price in 2004 for thinking the charge wouldn't stick."

Davis said Obama needs to immediately preempt attacks on his patriotism by reprising the theme of his 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention -- that only in the United States of America could the son of a Kenyan immigrant and a woman from a small-town in Kansas aspire to the heights of power. Obama took up that theme last night, but only deep inside his San Antonio address.

Other Democrats worry that Republicans might find some nugget from Obama's days as a community organizer in Chicago to paint him as a radical who will be unwilling to challenge liberal orthodoxy on social and poverty issues.

But Obama has resisted such entreaties. "There's no reason why we would want to change our approach," Obama said yesterday.

Obama is accustomed to doubts about his ability to withstand an opponent's attacks. During his 2004 Senate race, he kept above his desk an image of Muhammad Ali defeating Sonny Liston. But that campaign turned into a cakewalk when, first, his main opponent for the Democratic nomination, Blair Hull, and then his expected Republican opponent, Jack Ryan, self-destructed.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe scoffs at the notion that Obama will not be prepared for the coming attacks. "The Clintons are the gold standard of negative tactical campaigning," he said. But that attitude worries many Democrats.

"What Barack has shown is the ability to raise a prodigious amount of money. The one thing I don't know that Barack has proven is, can he take a sustained attack?" asked one unaffiliated strategist.

Yesterday's results might suggest that Clinton's punches are landing with more force than at any other time in the 13 months since Obama entered the campaign -- and as the Obama campaign is beset by missteps.