By Karl Rove
April 24, 2008; Page A13
The Wall Street Journal
After being pummeled 55% to 45% in the Pennsylvania primary, Barack
Obama was at a loss for explanations. The best he could do was to
compliment his supporters in an email saying, "you helped close the
gap to a slimmer margin than most thought possible." Then he asked for
money.
With $42 million in the bank, money is the least of Sen. Obama's
problems. He needs a credible message that convinces Democrats he
should be president. In recent days, he's spent too much time
proclaiming his inevitable nomination. But they already know he's won
more states, votes and delegates.
Chad Crowe
His words wear especially thin when he was dealt a defeat like
Tuesday's. Mr. Obama was routed despite outspending Hillary Clinton on
television by almost 3-1. While polls in the final days showed a
possible 4% or 5% Clinton win, she apparently took late-deciders by a
big margin to clinch the landslide.
Where she cobbled together her victory should cause concern in the
Obama HQ. She did better – and he worse – than expected in
Philadelphia's suburbs. Mrs. Clinton won two of these four affluent
suburban counties, home of the white-wine crowd Mr. Obama has depended
on for victories before.
In the small town and rural "bitter" precincts, she clobbered him. Mr.
Obama's state chair was Sen. Bob Casey, who hails from Lackawanna
County in northeast Pennsylvania. She carried that county 74%-25%. In
the state's 61 less-populous counties, she won 63% – and by 278,266
votes. Her margin of victory statewide was 208,024 votes.
Mrs. Clinton's problem remains that she's behind in the delegate
count, with 1,589 to Mr. Obama's 1,714. Neither candidate will get to
the 2,025 needed for nomination with elected delegates. But the
Democratic Party's rules of proportionality mean it will be hard to
close that margin among the 733 delegates yet to be elected or
declared. Mrs. Clinton will need to take 58% of the remaining
delegates. Thus far, she's been able to get that or better in just
four of the 46 contests.
Her path gets rougher. While Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and
Puerto Rico are good territory for her, Oregon and Montana may not be.
And Mrs. Clinton will be outspent badly. She entered April with $9.3
million in cash, but debts of $10.3 million. Mr. Obama had $42.5
million but only $663,000 in unpaid bills.
In Pennsylvania, Mr. Obama's money could only wipe out half a
purported 20% deficit, but the Real Clear Politics average of recent
polls shows Mr. Obama behind by 2% in Indiana and ahead in North
Carolina by 16%. Those states will vote in two weeks. The financial
throw weight he will have in the Hoosier State could more than erase
Mrs. Clinton's lead there, while keeping North Carolina solidly in his
column. His money could give him a double knockout on May 6, which
would effectively end her bid for the presidency.
If she wins Indiana, however, she will surely go forward – and
Democrats run the risk of a split decision in June. Mr. Obama could
have more delegates, but she could have more popular votes. In fact,
on Tuesday night she actually grabbed the popular vote lead: If you
include the Michigan and Florida primary results, Mrs. Clinton now
leads the popular vote by a slim 113,000 votes out of 29,914,356 cast.
Mr. Obama will argue he wasn't on the ballot in Michigan and didn't
campaign in Florida. But don't Democrats want to count all the votes
in all the contests? After all, Mr. Obama took his name off the
Michigan ballot; it isn't something he was forced to do. And while he
didn't campaign in Florida, neither did she.
And what about the Michigan and Florida delegates? By my calculations,
she should pick up about 54 delegates on Mr. Obama if they are seated
(this assumes the Michigan "uncommitted" delegates go for Mr. Obama).
If he is ahead in June by a number similar to his lead today of 125,
does he let the two delegations in and make the convention vote even
closer? Or does he continue to act as if two states with 41 of the 270
electoral votes needed for the White House don't exist?
The Democratic Party has two weakened candidates. Mrs. Clinton started
as a deeply flawed candidate: the palpable and unpleasant sense of
entitlement, the absence of a clear and optimistic message, the
grating personality impatient to be done with the little people and
overly eager for a return to power, real power, the phoniness and the
exaggerations. These problems have not diminished over the long months
of the contest. They have grown. She started out with the highest
negatives of any major candidate in an open race for the presidency
and things have only gotten worse.
And what of the reborn Adlai Stevenson? Mr. Obama is befuddled and
angry about the national reaction to what are clearly accepted, even
commonplace truths in San Francisco and Hyde Park. How could anyone
take offense at the observation that people in small-town and rural
American are "bitter" and therefore "cling" to their guns and their
faith, as well as their xenophobia? Why would anyone raise questions
about a public figure who, for only 20 years, attended a church and
developed a close personal relationship with its preacher who says
AIDS was created by our government as a genocidal tool to be used
against people of color, who declared America's chickens came home to
roost on 9/11, and wants God to damn America? Mr. Obama has a weakness
among blue-collar working class voters for a reason.
His inspiring rhetoric is a potent tool for energizing college
students and previously uninvolved African-American voters. But his
appeals are based on two aspirational pledges he is increasingly less
credible in making.
Mr. Obama's call for postpartisanship looks unconvincing, when he is
unable to point to a single important instance in his Senate career
when he demonstrated bipartisanship. And his repeated calls to
remember Dr. Martin Luther King's "fierce urgency of now" in tackling
big issues falls flat as voters discover that he has not provided
leadership on any major legislative battle.
Mr. Obama has not been a leader on big causes in Congress. He has been
manifestly unwilling to expend his political capital on urgent issues.
He has been only an observer, watching the action from a distance,
thinking wry and sardonic and cynical thoughts to himself about his
colleagues, mildly amused at their too-ing and fro-ing. He has held
his energy and talent in reserve for the more important task of
advancing his own political career, which means running for president.
But something happened along the way. Voters saw in the Philadelphia
debate the responses of a vitamin-deficient Stevenson act-a-like. And
in the closing days of the Pennsylvania primary, they saw him
alternate between whining about his treatment by Mrs. Clinton and the
press, and attacking Sen. John McCain by exaggerating and twisting his
words. No one likes a whiner, and his old-style attacks undermine his
appeals for postpartisanship.
Mr. Obama is near victory in the Democratic contest, but it is time
for him to reset, freshen his message and say something new. His
conduct in the last several weeks raises questions about whether, for
all his talents, he is ready to be president.
Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to
President George W. Bush.
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