Before March 5th, Barack Obama kept his campaign above the political fray, creating enormous political energy by holding huge rallies and giving inspiring speeches. For balance, he gave substantive debate performances and began to include more policy specifics in his speeches. The Obama campaign was riding high.
Then, a few days before the March 4 primaries, in reaction to Clinton's constant, nonsense criticism of his campaign being based only on speeches, Obama began holding town hall-style meetings instead of large rallies. The energy of these town hall events was noticeably lower than the previous large rallies. At the time, someone in the Obama campaign explained that they didn't want him to become a caricature of his large rallies and lofty speeches.
NAFTA-gate then hit. (In retrospect, it looks like Obama may have been smeared.) That was a political punch that landed, and Obama lost Ohio and the Texas primary. As a result, the Obama campaign has freaked out and gone negative against Hillary, instead of doing what made him so successful in February.
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