Loser Obama

When Barack Obama had to acknowledge that Hillary Clinton was victorious in Texas and Ohio and Rhode Island, he didn't wear it well.

He looked angry. I don't think he looked at himself and his campaign and wondered why he failed to win. Obama seemed to be looking for someone else to blame.

The buck doesn't stop with Obama.

From the New York Times:

Senator Barack Obama woke up on Wednesday talking of his delegate lead and of taking the fight to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. But after defeats in two of the most populous states, he also sounded like a chastened candidate in search of his lost moment.

Mr. Obama once again failed to administer an electoral coup de grâce, and so allowed a tenacious rival to elude his grasp. Now, after appearing nearly invincible just last week, he faces questions about his toughness and vulnerabilities — never mind seven weeks of tramping across Pennsylvania, the site of the next big primary showdown. His goal is to prove he can win states vital to a Democratic victory in November.

In Ohio and Texas, he drew vast and adoring crowds, yet he came up short on primary day, just as he did in New Hampshire in early January. Mrs. Clinton’s attack on his readiness to serve as commander in chief seemed to resonate with some Texas voters.

In Ohio, Mr. Obama failed to make much headway with voters who live paycheck to paycheck and feel the economic walls closing in, a troublesome sign as he heads to Pennsylvania.

But his challenge now is about more than demographics. He must reassure supporters, and party leaders who had started to rally to his side, that he can absorb the lessons of Tuesday’s defeats. And he faces a challenge of rebounding as quickly as he did from his loss in New Hampshire.

Flying from Texas back home to Chicago on Wednesday morning, Mr. Obama delivered the message that he intended to counterpunch forcefully.

His campaign aides on Wednesday urged Mrs. Clinton to release her tax returns from 2006, as well as her papers from her years as first lady, which Mr. Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, described as “secreted in the Clinton library.”

“She’s made the argument that she’s thoroughly vetted, in contrast to me,” Mr. Obama said to reporters aboard his campaign plane. “I think it’s important to examine that argument.”

Over the last year, though, Mr. Obama has struggled to deliver that examination. He picks up the cudgel, and then sets it down. The problem is that Mr. Obama has built a campaign persona as the man of hope, a young candidate with oratorical skills who promises to build bridges across the ideological divide.

If he indulges his inner Chicago pol, formed in a city where politics is conducted with crowbars, he risks taking the shine off. But his advisers say he has little choice.

That's it.

Obama hasn't had to get tough. He's been dealing in fiction. People have responded to the character he created and his very simple message -- change and hope.

I think Obama has hit the wall with that empty rhetoric.

The honeymoon with the press is over. Up until now, Obama has deployed wife Michelle to go on the attack and do the tough talking when necessary. Obama has kept his hands clean. Until very recently, he's been given a pass. The press has been too busy drooling over him to vet him.

Chris Matthews is a perfect example. It's weird that he admits to being in a rapturous state when he hears Obama speak, feeling a rare thrill going up his leg. That's too much information.

Those days of the media's adoration seem to be gone. The media have been shamed into reporting that Obama does not have the ability to walk on water.

Obama didn't want to do it. He didn't want to risk "taking the shine off." He doesn't have a choice.

It seemed to come as quite a shock to him on Tuesday night. The audacity of Hillary to win both Texas and Ohio!

The expression on loser Obama's face spoke volumes: "Some people don't like me. They really don't like me."

...Mr. Obama seems likely to take a tougher stance toward Mrs. Clinton, if only because he saw how well such tactics worked against him. When the Clinton campaign attacked on multiple fronts last week, he sometimes sounded defensive, occasionally talking at his audiences rather than with them.

“There’s no magic bullet that hurt him; it was a series of bullets,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant. “She reduced his charisma and forced voters back to reality.”

Hillary did force voters back to reality, and that brought Obama crashing down. She burst his bubble.

In defeat, voters are getting a glimpse of how Obama reacts when the going gets tough -- with anger. It's not all that inspiring.