Can Obama win?

I was just watching Hillary on CNN this morning attacking Barack and realized why Obama lost yesterday. It was not Hillary's fault. It was his own fault. Why?

Because he simply has allowed Clinton to define him the last couple of weeks. Hillary repeated several times the "one speech" line. Referring to his speech against the war in 2002. Her argument is that Obama is a "one speech candidate". And it seems that this message is sticking. Is it true? Of course not. Barack is one of the most intelligent, progressive and charismatic candidates that the democratic party had in decades. But the last 2-3 weeks, it seems that his whole career is one speech. Take that with the unfounded smears about Rezko, religion, and NAFTA, and all of the sudden Barack looks like a weak candidate.

As I wrote above, it is not Hillary's fault. She has been attacking Barack in a desperate manner, and many of her attacks have been untruthful and wrong. But Barack has not reacted. He has made the classic mistake of trying to appear "above all that". Take that together with some leaks from his campaign that he may appoint republicans like Lugar in his administration, and it is not surprising that he lost decisively yesterday in democratic primaries.

I voted for Obama and I hope he can win. But I start getting the impression that he may not be able to win the general election. If he can not stand up to Hillary, how will he stand to the monstrous republican smear machine in the general?

I would certainly much prefer Hillary over any republican and I will, of course, plan to vote for her if she is the nominee. I hope she will not be. Barack can still win. But he has to change his style immediately. Yesterday's defeat should be a wake-up call for him and his campaign. You can not be a "nice guy" all the time if you want to win. You can not allow your opponents to define you. That is what Dukakis and, more recently, Kerry did. He has to counterattack very aggressively and show that he can fight hard. I hope he does it. Because he would be a better president than Hillary. But I am not sure he will.