Doubts About Obama

Polls are tightening in Pennsylvania as Obama closes on Hillary. RCP average here. But is Obama electable? Will America have grave doubts when the time comes to vote in the fall? RCP Blog Daily 2008 has this:

"Against McCain, Clinton Bests Obama in Swing-State Polls" (David Lightman, McClatchy Newspapers) Now for the flip-side: In three important battleground states -- Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- Clinton beats McCain in head-to-head matchups, while McCain beats Obama. This is part of why Clinton says Obama can't win in November.

Michael Barone looks closely at the source of Obama's appeal-- urban, academic (profs, government workers, and students), and upscale:

In reviewing the maps of the Democratic primary results, in Dave Leip's electoral atlas, I was struck by the narrow geographic base of Barack Obama's candidacy.

The same pattern is highlighted by the WSJ's map of (red state) Indiana in the run up to its May 6th primary.

As has been pointed out before, Barack Obama has always essentially run in Dem contests, as in Illinois the winner of the statewide Dem primaries in recent years has almost always won the general election. Barone goes on to characterize Obama, this excerpt on the key issue of commander in chief:

His standard campaign statements on Iraq seem to suggest that all honor should go to the opponents of the war and none to the brave men and women who have waged it. His latest statements about leaving a "strike force" in Iraq suggest a certain insouciance or even indifference about what happens in a theater in which 4,000 Americans have died. He clearly lacks the military expertise of John McCain or Hillary Clinton, both diligent members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Like another eloquent little-known Illinois politician who emerged suddenly as an attractive presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson, he seems more comfortable with the language of diplomacy and negotiation than with the words of war. Like Stevenson, he speaks fluently and often eloquently but does not exude a sense of command.

He has never been vetted by the right, or even the center for that matter. This brings up another aspect of Obama's bid for commander in chief that continues to dog Obama. We wonder--he wants to lead our country--but is it really his country? Look who he surrounds himself with--a senior Democrat foreign policy adviser who caved to the UN and put our troops in mortal danger because of political calculation. Does he really know and care about the America that we love? Joe Klein, Time, "The Patriotism Problem":

But there was still something missing. I noticed it during Obama's response to a young man who remembered how the country had come together after Sept. 11 and lamented "the dangerously low levels of patriotism and pride in our country, the loss of faith in our elected officials." Obama used this, understandably, to go after George W. Bush. "Cynicism has become the hot stock," he said, "the growth industry during the Bush Administration." He talked about the Administration's mendacity, its incompetence during Hurricane Katrina, its lack of transparency. But he never returned to the question of patriotism. He never said, "But hey, look, we're Americans. This is the greatest country on earth. We'll rise to the occasion."

This is a chronic disease among Democrats, who tend to talk more about what's wrong with America than what's right.

Of course, hearing this makes me a bit cynical. What has the administration lied about? The Iraq war was entered into under UN auspices, with the bipartisan approval of Congress, to enforce disarmament resolutions and depose a dictator-supporter of terrorism-- based on the best intel we had at the time, which has been more than vindicated. Katrina, well I will only say how could this have occurred in the Dem paradise of Louisiana--100 years of liberal paradise? They have a new Republican governor now. And transparency? We have only to consider Barack Obama's unforthcoming behavior on Rezko--or conclude that Sen. Obama is truly clueless about what goes on around him. Oh, but he considers himself a savvy, street-smart guy--just last night he told the college crowd on Hardball that he was from Chicago, ergo tough. Barack Obama knows what it takes, even if he has to lie about his own grandmother.

Beyond his thin resume, something's missing with Barack Obama--it's faith in America. There is nothing "scurrilous", as Klein puts it, about this undercurrent of doubt. It has to do with his liberalism. It has to do with his anti-American friends.

"In this campaign, we will not stand for the politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon," he said on the night that he lost Ohio and Texas. But then he added, "I owe what I am to this country, this country that I love, and I will never forget it."

But that was the first night he said that. Before he had always ended his speeches with a paean to the world--"we will change this country, and change the world". As if he would deliver us up to the kindness of strangers in a world wracked by terror, where America is the number one target.

UPDATE: Erick at RedState is of the same mind.

Related posts: Governor Big Guy, Obama-Kerry, Obama Pinocchio, Ayers on Tour