On Apr 25, 2008, at 4:22 PM, Gary Mongiovi wrote:
> Does anyone have a hypothesis about this, because it sure mystifies
> me. Obama did have an off night at the last debate, but Hillary's
> not any more likable now than she was two weeks ago. Nor is there
> any reason to think she'll be better able to beat McCain. She was
> expected to win in Pennsylvania, so the post-Penn-Primary question
> "why can't he close?" strikes me as a non sequitur; yet it seems to
> have got some traction in the media. As far as I can tell, McCain
> would still rather run against Hillary, which indicates that his
> people at least think Obama would be a stronger candidate than
> Hillary, and they're probably right. I note in passing that Obama
> looks & sounds more weary than he did a couple of weeks ago, no
> doubt for good reason, so perhaps that's feeding into the sense
> that he might not pull off the nomination.
I think it's at least three things. One, race. I believe the history is that white support for black candidates erodes as election day nears. And two, his mantra of "change" is wearing thin, since there's so little substantive difference between the two of them. (Funny quote from a NYT vox pop piece from Kokomo the other day: some guy said in Indiana they don't like change - they want things to be the way they used to be.) And three, I think Obama is some sort of narcissist in the clinical sense - charming but ultimately empty, with a huge sense of entitlement. Many of his followers seem to reflect that (e.g., their petulant demand that Hillary just get out, even though there's no good reason she should - but they, and he, seem to think he should just be crowned the nominee). The charm of narcissists wears thin after a while, and their petulance shows through. If he gets this pissy in the face of fairly mild attacks, how will he react when the Republican shit machine really gets going?
Doug