Obama's charm fades as the going gets tough
Senator risks being seen as 'just another conventional politician'
Obama: Crunch time is near(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
He seems tired, brittle and more aggressive, and some of his appealing hope and charisma have been dispensed with.
Five days after losing to Hillary Clinton in the Pennsylvania primary, Barack Obama has taken off the gloves in his battle to win the American presidency -- and in so doing has left critics wondering whether he is not just another conventional politician grubbing for votes.
In Indiana on Friday, scene of his next showdown with Mrs Clinton, he deployed sharper verbal onslaughts to go with the attack ads he has begun to run. Tackling the former first lady on healthcare, her key campaign issue, he said: "Here's the difference between Senator Clinton and myself. All these folks who talk about how experienced they are, you ask yourself, 'Why haven't we got healthcare reform?' I'll get it done in my first term."
On Iraq, a war he opposed from the start, he is blunter than ever. "I was right. Those who voted for it, like Hillary Clinton and John McCain, were wrong."
But in the battle to secure the Democratic nomination, it is Mr Obama who has not "got it done". He is convincingly, perhaps insurmountably, ahead in the number of states won, his share of the popular votes cast, and his tally of elected delegates. But he has yet to win over enough of the "super-delegates" to be sure of securing the nomination.
If he fails to wrest Indiana from Mrs Clinton, who is just ahead in the polls, his campaign fears that the remaining uncommitted super-delegates will lose faith in his ability to win and back his rival instead.
Defeat by 10 points in Pennsylvania on Tuesday provided proof that recent ill-chosen words about working-class Americans who "cling" to God and guns because they are "bitter" about their economic hardship have hurt his candidacy. So, too, has his association with Jeremiah Wright, the incendiary pastor of his Chicago church.
The frontrunner, who had the nomination in the palm of his hand a month ago on the back of soaring rhetoric and a pledge to transform politics, sounds different too. The Democratic battle increasingly resembles a civil war.
Mr Obama emerged as a challenger to the established order, with his army of students and internet donors, to unseat Mrs Clinton who, meanwhile, has an apparent belief in her divine right to rule the Democrats.
But as the overwhelming favourite to take on Republican John McCain in November's election, Mr Obama now exhibits irritation at his need to keep explaining himself to those voters -- including the white working class, older, women and Catholics -- who remain stubbornly resistant to his charms.
Conservative columnist David Brooks, once an admirer, complained that he has morphed into "a more conventional politician", guilty of "the sorts of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the stuff of conventional politics".
In the sweltering heat of a school sports hall, Mr Obama is still slick, at times uplifting, but the edges are flintier, the irritation at the same old questions about claims that he disrespects the American flag, more pronounced. "It's a lie," he finally blurts.
Campaign insiders say the senator will do more to stress his humble roots as the scholarship schoolboy son of a single mother. In Indianapolis last week he pledged to "remind people of where I come from. I was raised with far fewer advantages than either of my two remaining opponents."
Yet the poise with which he carries himself can seem aloof. There remains a suspicion that he is reluctant to tailor his appeal to those voters who want their president to be someone like them.
Senator Obama is gracing the next cover of GQ magazine, the men's style bible. One quote released by the magazine is revealing: "I'm in this to win and I think I will win. But I'm also going to emerge intact. I'm going to be Barack Obama and not some parody."
© Telegraph
- Tim Shipman in Kokomo, Indiana
