This is extremely telling:
Obama can’t even take a tiny punch. He’s been nothing but worshiped this entire campaign. When McCain threw him a tiny bit of sneer about the “no Al-Qaeda in Iraq”, Obama was peevish and put off stride.
This guy cannot take criticism, and nearly loses it over very valid and tough questions. Since he has not had to face any, and seems to think he’s God’s Gift to humanity and anyone who questions that is a racist or out to get him, he can be made to look very unpresidential very easily.
I’m not one of the people who thinks this is the Dem’s year, or that the election will be close. I think McCain KILLS Obama in an electoral landslide (the partisan mix of yellow-dog Dems and Republican’s pretty much negates the chance of a popular vote landslide, that will be close as ever, but to no avail).
from Ed Morrisey:
It’s only the first day of the Tony Rezko trial, testimony has yet to be heard, and already the press has gotten to Barack Obama. Faced with a new focus on his ties to the defendant in a corruption case and exposed missteps in his NAFTA dance, Obama stalked out of a press conference with questions ringing in his ears (via Instapundit):
Led by the Chicago press corps that has covered Obama for years, the candidate today faced a barrage of questions in what turned out to be a contentious news conference.
Questions centered on why his campaign had denied that a meeting occurred between his chief economic advisor and Canadian officials as well as questions on his relationship with Tony Rezko, a Chicago land developer and fast food magnate, now on trial for corruption charges. …
Much of the back and forth, though, between reporters and Obama was about his relationship with Tony Rezko, with reporters demanding to know why new details were emerging from the case though Obama and his staff had claimed they had been forthright with all the details.
Obama and Carol Marin, political editor at NBC5 in Chicago and columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times, tangled over how up front Obama had been about Rezko. Obama cut off her line of questioning, saying that Marin’s questions were personally motivated.
Obama is not ready for prime-time, and there is going to be plenty to question him over when McCain starts in. Hillary was ham-strung by the fact that she agreed with him on virtually all policy questions, and only attacked on experience, which, up to now at least doesn’t seem to have worked.
But when we get down to the brass tacks of the fact that Obama is the most liberal person in Congress, the public is going to notice. All those fainting college students aren’t going to equal the working class Dems who won’t vote for him, the Hispanics who don’t trust him on account of his race, and the words and writings of Obama and his wife about their black identity and pay-back politics, the people who out and out won’t vote for a black, the people who think he’s too inexperienced, too liberal, too green, has the wrong temperament and lacks wisdom.
I personally think Hillary would be tougher but she’d lose too. Only McCain can pick up independents in numbers enough to shift some blue states red, and that’s all that matters. Even if he loses Ohio, which he may, he will pick up other blue states like New Hampshire and Mid-Western states that went for Kerry to off-set that. He has a very real shot at Pennsylvania, which would seal the deal if he keeps all the ’04 states, which polls seem to indicate he will.
There’s only one flaw in all this and its based on a dream I had. McCain is 72. What if he dies between now and the election? Republicans have NO ONE. Perhaps Guiliani, but no one else comes to mind, and Rudy ran a shitty campaign.
Food for thought, though.
via Powerline
Ed Morrissey writes:
It appears that the local press has managed to do what the national media could not — treat Obama as a politician and not a secular messiah. They asked tough questions about Obama’s political connections to a fixer and his campaign’s outright false answers on an Obama adviser’s contacts with Canadian diplomats regarding Obama’s rhetoric on NAFTA. Instead of handling the questions calmly and patiently, Obama accused the media of having an agenda against him, and then angrily stalked off.
Many have wondered whether Obama has the experience and temperament necessary to make it on the national scene; maybe the question should be whether he can last in his home town.
another take on the theory that “Obamania” will be hard to sustain in the long haul:
—We saw last night that “Yes, we can” doesn’t have quite the same resonance when you’ve just suffered two big losses. How long before some journalists start writing that Obama’s oratory is boring? What Obama has to worry about is the Sanjaya effect. Young girls swooned for him when the crooner was on American Idol and he was swarmed as the hottest celebrity at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner last year. Now, if anyone remembers who he was, they have to wonder, “What the hell was that all about?” Obama’s a talented guy with formidable advantages in the nomination contest still, but when people are routinely fainting at your rallies, it’s probably a sign that you’re a craze, which is wonderful—while it lasts. At the very least, Obama’s halo has slipped, and he will have to spend some time down on Earth with the rest of us mere terrestrials.