Quickest and easiest way for Barack Obama to finish off Hillary Clinton? Easy, get the majority of uncommitted superdelegates to jump on board and shut this down before Clinton's kamikaze tactics irreparably damage both candidates. In pursuing this strategy, Obama is likely focusing on three points. One, Obama is almost certainly going to have the most pledged delegates by Denver, and if Clinton takes it away with the help of Supers, a lot of his supporters will walk or stay home in November, leading to landslide McCain victory. Two, if Clinton continues the "kitchen sink" approach, he'll have no choice but to unload a ton of oppo on her in the seven weeks ahead of the Pennsylvania primary that will seriously damage both candidates and the Party; best to shut it down now. Three, he's more electable than Clinton, and if they want to win the White House and expand Congressional majorities, get behind him now.
Obama's argument should be fairly persuasive, but obviously superdelegates have heard from Clinton as well. And on electability, Clinton will insist that she's far more electable by virtue of winning the big swing states of Ohio, Florida, New Jersey, etc. Clinton is arguing that Obama's losses show he'll be weak in those critical states come the general election.
Clinton's talking points have been repeatedly and persuasively debunked by various election analysts and bloggers, but this idea continues to gain traction. Arguments attesting to Clinton's alleged "swing state" strength is now being amplified, unchallenged, in the mainstream media. To wit, witness this story in tomorrow's Washington Post, basically a summation of Clinton concern troll talking points:
If Obama becomes the Democratic nominee but cannot win support from working-class whites and Hispanics, they argue, then Democrats will not retake the White House in November. "If you can't win in the Southwest, if you don't win Ohio, if you don't win Pennsylvania, you've got problems in November," said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a Clinton supporter.
Even some Obama advisers see a real problem. "Ultimately, all that matters is how the nominee stacks up against John McCain," said one adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity, referring to the senator from Arizona and presumptive GOP nominee. "Right now, Barack is not connecting with the children of the Reagan Democrats. That's a real concern."
Perception of electability is most obviously shaped by the media narrative, and my sense is that Obama's on the verge of losing the spin war. In the above story, for example, not only did Obama fail to seriously challenge the article's wrong-headed premise, an unnamed Obama adviser actually reinforced the stupidity by going on record to parrot Clinton's talking points. This is just unacceptably bad media spin. If their own polling outfits aren't getting the job done, don't they have the money to pay for one staffer to track the progressive blogosphere, which is offering some of the best data, analysis, and talking points for the Obama campaign? All Obama needs is one person to compile the best stuff from (admittedly not-progressive Obamaniac) Andrew Sullivan (a hub for links to persuasive Obama-supporting analysis and Clinton oppo research), Obsidian Wings (good in depth analysis), and the Daily Kos' own poblano (number-crunching).
The numbers don't support the notion that the candidate who wins a state in the party primary is stronger in that state in a general match-up. Recent Daily Kos posts and diaries analyzing the 50-state Survey USA results, illustrate this point. Obama does better than Clinton matchups against McCain in New Hampshire and Nevada, for example, which Clinton won, while the converse is true in Alabama, where Obama won in a blowout. The reason can be seen in Brenden Nyhan's extensive analysis, which looks at Obama's demographic strengths and weaknesses spread across different states.
So why are they not getting this information out there? Obama is habitually losing news cycles over last couple of weeks, often because Plouffe, Axelrod, and other Obama surrogates miss key arguments and defenses -- key points that are contemporaneously put forth by bloggers. Why, for example, is this post by Josh Marshall on the "commander-in-chief threshold" so much sharper and more persuasive than anything I've seen coming from the Obama campaign?
Obama is taking the weekend off from the campaign trial. He would be wise to take some time to devise a new media strategy and revamp his media operation: Obama can't afford to lose the spin wars and let Clinton shape the media narrative. If he regains the media narrative (line up with Obama now, the Dems win; let the internecine nuclear warfare continue, and Dems lose), he has a decent chance to get the Superdelegates to shut this race down before it spirals out of control.
UPDATE: See this story by John Heilemann in NY Magazine on how Obama appears to be unprepared for the recent media blowback.