Obama’s Vulnerability

For now Barack Obama is still on track. The early indication from the Gallup Poll daily numbers (confirmed by a couple of other polls) is that despite four days of punishing coverage, "Bittergate" has not derailed Obama's campaign. It may even have the perverse effect of lowering expectations so that a single-digit loss to Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania will look less bad than the same result without the gaffe. A week from now the conventional wisdom might be, "He only lost by seven! Not bad after all he's been through."

Don't get me wrong. I think Obama's comments at a San Francisco fund-raiser—where he said that "bitter" working-class voters "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them"—was a dumb choice of words and a damaging mistake. The polls could be wrong and the gaffe could end up harming him. Hillary, placing all of her chips on the incident, is already running ads in Pennsylvania telling voters that Obama looks down on them. Even if he does respectably there, Hillary will likely make this a big issue in the remaining primaries, almost all of which happen to be in largely rural, progun states such as Indiana, North Carolina, Kentucky and West Virginia.

And of course, if Obama's the nominee we'll hear about the San Francisco remarks from the Republicans all fall. The GOP is out of synch with the American public on most major issues, so it's inevitable that the party would run against Obama's character. Clinton and John McCain, the $100 million twins (the estimated net worth of each), will try to paint Obama as an elitist, and it could work.

But my gut tells me that most people won't judge Obama based on one comment, and the only way the charge will stick is if it reflects some core truth. So does it? Is Obama a snob?

We know that he grew up without a father or much money and only recently paid off his student loans. We know that he connects well with people from all walks of life on the trail without seeming condescending. We know there are no stories in his background of his acting in a high-handed or, as Hillary describes it, "patronizing" way toward other people. (The same cannot be said, alas, about some accounts from her own contemporaries, all the way up to her 1992 slight of women who "stay at home baking cookies.") In fact, conservatives on the Harvard Law Review recall with fondness how respectfully Obama treated them, in sharp contrast with other liberals at the law school.

But my take on this question isn't important. So I asked someone whose judgment on it is. Roy Romer is a former governor of Colorado and a former chairman of the Democratic Party. He is also an uncommitted superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention.