Is Barack on the Rocks?

How bad is the Pennsylvania result for Team Obama and what does it mean going forward? Three writers think it through:

• “He can’t finish her off,” says Dan Kennedy in the Guardian. Obama scooped up presumptive-nominee status too soon, and now Americans have “buyer’s remorse”—realizing Clinton is the scrappier fighter. But it’s probably too late to tap the former first lady.

• More weaknesses in the Obama argument keep presenting themselves, sighs John Judis in the New Republic. His base looks ever more like George McGovern’s—as the candidate, formerly seen as middle-of-the-road, looks increasingly leftist. More working-class tests await in Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia.
• Walter Shapiro notes in Salon that despite the incessant campaigning, demographic groups keep performing as initially expected. The longer Obama goes without a big victory, the less inevitable he looks.

(More Barack Obama stories.)