The Barack Backlash

It's been a whole week since I heard anyone suggest that Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race. I'm just sayin'.

I don't know whether Barack Obama has put the Wright mess behind him--probably not, given his sudden interest in going on "Today" and "Meet the Press"--but questions about his handling of the debacle are going to reverberate for a long time. And the echoes will grow louder if he loses Indiana and even North Carolina next week.

It's hard to understand not just why Obama waited as long as he did to repudiate the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but why he didn't see this train wreck coming down the track. Fifteen months ago, he knew his pastor was enough of a liability to disinvite him from the presidential announcement speech. Why, then, did Obama seemingly have no plan to deal with the matter once those videotaped sermons surfaced?

Perhaps the best thing the senator did on Tuesday was to seem a little angry. Anger, real or manufactured, is a great tool in politics, and Obama was starting to draw criticism for seeming too cool. When he didn't stand up to the reverend on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, critics said he looked weak. Voters make judgments based on how candidates handle campaign crises. If Jeremiah was running around the country taunting Barack, who barely bothered to respond, was this a man who could stand up to the leaders of Iran and North Korea?

With Meredith Vieira this morning, Obama brushed off a question about why he didn't act sooner, saying that would have been the "politically expedient" thing to do. (The idea that he only had "snippets" to go on earlier is a tough sell, given Wright's history.) Michelle Obama's role was to say "voters are tired" of this flap. But a voter asked Barack about it yesterday.

Maybe this will all have blown over in a couple of weeks. Perhaps most voters will conclude it's not fair to blame Obama for the ranting of his ex-pastor. But it may well undermine him with voters who are uneasy with the political newcomer this fall, if he makes it that far.

This is one instance in which the polls tell the story:

"Senator Barack Obama's aura of inevitability in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination has diminished in the wake of his loss in the Pennsylvania primary and the furor over his former pastor, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

"The survey found that Mr. Obama, whose lead in the race for the delegates needed to secure the nomination has given him a commanding position over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton since February, is now perceived to be in a much tighter fight. Fifty-one percent of Democratic voters say they expect Mr. Obama to win their party's nomination, down from 69 percent a month ago. Forty-eight percent of Democrats say Mr. Obama is the candidate with the best chance of beating Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, down from 56 percent a month ago.

"Mr. Obama still holds an edge over Mrs. Clinton on several key measures; for example, 46 percent of the Democratic primary voters say he remains their choice for the nomination, while 38 percent preferred Mrs. Clinton, who has lost support among men in recent weeks."

There's a Fox survey as well:

"On the surface, a majority of Americans (52 percent) says they care very little or not at all about the relationship between Obama and Wright, and four in 10 say that relationship would have no impact on their vote; however, a look below the surface shows how much this issue is influencing the presidential race.