What Went Wrong With Obama

Here's a link to a lengthy column from Chicago describing the woes that have hit the Obama campaign, and why it may have been a fatal mistake to choose Joe Biden over Hillary Clinton for VP:

Obama's Big Mistake: Not Picking Hillary

I found this information particulary interesting:

Two weeks ago to his dismay, David Axelrod of Chicago, Barack Obama’s top strategist and a man whom I have known for 30 years, discovered that while his client’s Iraq trip was a roaring success, his European speech was a failure-so much so that it was ridiculed as being eloquent but shallow despite all the media pazzaz. Why? Because his client seemed too simplistic, too innocent, too guileless, too idealistic. As one habitué of Manny’s Jewish deli here told Axelrod, “I get the idea that Putin would pat him on the head and say `there-there young man; go play with your ideals while we adults play politics the old fashioned way.”

Then came the first event which convinced Axelrod that his client needed a grown-up realist on the ticket with him-not first term Virginia Governor Tim Kaine or the youthful Indiana senator Evan Bayh, two nice young boys with no wrinkles in their cheeks so indecisive that between them they would have difficulty deciding where to have lunch. The event:

1. The Saddleback Back-to-Back TV Interview on Moral Issues. Axelrod’s client drew the first appearance before an evangelical audience with Rev. Rick Warren. The subjects included social issues and world problems cast in moral perspectives. Axelrod, a pro-abort, was appalled (a close associate told me) at how badly his client did on one central question: when does life begin? That was a question everyone could assume would be asked of a presidential candidate but Obama looked like a deer caught in the headlights. The answer Axelrod had given him was standard operating procedure for a pro-abort: viz through the centuries philosophers, even Augustine, disagreed, Augustine believing it came at “quickening” i.e. when the unborn child stirs in the womb. Augustine was hobbled by ancient biology but Axelrod had trained his pro-abort candidates to start with this absurd antiquity and move quickly to weave an aura of doubt to be resolved by support for greater federal expenditures in pre-natal and post natal care winding up with universal health care, a smooth formulation.

Instead, Axelrod was jarred out of his wits to see his client stumble around on the question as if he and Warren were engaged in casual Harvard faculty lounge banter and wind up by confessing that the solution as to when life begins “is beyond my pay grade.” Axelrod slammed his hand down on the TV table when he saw his client fumble it and decided that Obama needed someone by his side to give some old-fashioned moxie to issues like this. For example, someone who has been around the track a long time. Delaware’s Joe Biden, a pro-abort Catholic, had learned to finesse a question like this. And certainly on foreign policy and defense issues Biden could rattle off the lexicon with the best of the Republicans. At that point Axelrod made a phone call and immediately Joe Biden was sent overseas to Georgia to get a first-hand feel of the dispute between it and Russia.

I knew the Saddleback event was a big stumble for Obama, but it's interesting to see that it might have pushed the campaign over the edge on Hillary. That led to Biden and the many problems since then. It's worth reading the whole thing.