Rough road to the White House

All three candidates have hit speed bumps. When they start crusing again, up comes another one.

What’s up for McCain? According to the New York Times…

Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign is in a troubled stretch, hindered by resignations of staff members, a lagging effort to build a national campaign organization and questions over whether he has taken full advantage of Democratic turmoil to present a case for his candidacy, Republicans say.

In interviews, some party leaders said they were worried about signs of disorder in his campaign, and if the focus in the last several weeks on the prominent role of lobbyists in Mr. McCain’s inner circle might undercut the heart of his general election message: that he is a reformer taking on special interests in Washington.

“The core image of John McCain is as a reformer in Washington — and the more dominant the story is about the lobbying teams around him, the more you put that into question,” said Terry Nelson, who was Mr. McCain’s campaign manager until he left in a shake-up last fall. “If the Obama campaign can truly change him from being seen as a reformer to just being another Washington politician, it could be very damaging over the course of the campaign.”

But Obama has his own problems to deal with, and they’re not all about Hillary Clinton. Here’s the bottom line, accordint to Michael Barone at NRO.

As (pollsters) Hart and Alex Horowitz note in their analysis of reactions to Obama, “When asked to recount any two memories of the total presidential campaign so far, seven of the 12 participants cite Rev. Wright by name. So far, clips of Rev. Wright clearly are the one ‘key defining moment’ of this campaign.”

Most reporters are liberals, whose circles of friends and acquaintances have included people with views not dissimilar to those of Wright or William Ayers, the unrepentant Weather Underground bomber with whom Obama served on a nonprofit board and at whose house his state Senate candidacy was launched. Such reporters don’t find these views utterly repugnant or particularly noteworthy. But most American voters do. And they wonder whether a candidate who associates with such people agrees with them — or disbelieve him when he says he doesn’t.

Though most in the press won’t admit it, that’s a problem — for the Obama candidacy and for the whole Democratic party once it nominates him.

So is Hillary Clinton just a byword? Hardly. She made a very weird comment today.

Sen. Barack Obama gives Hillary Clinton the benefit of the doubt that she had no hidden meaning when she invoked the assassination of Bobby Kennedy as an explanation for remaining in the Democratic presidential race.

What?!

Clinton’s remarks to the editorial board at the Argus Leader in South Dakota Friday struck some nerves partly because it came in the wake of Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy’s health problems and because of longstanding concerns about Obama’s security.

What did she say?

“People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa,” Clinton said Friday. “I find it curious because it is unprecedented in history. I don’t understand it.

“You know, my husband didn’t wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary sometime in the middle of June. Right?” she added later in the conversation.

Right. Okay so far. 

 “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know, I just– I don’t understand it.”

What?! She really said that?! What was she thinking?!

That’s going to come back on her, and Rev. Wright is going to come back on Obama. And McCain has a lot of party problems.

But not this weekend. He’s having a barbecue, and the media have turned it into a bash.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is hosting three prominent Republicans at his Arizona ranch — former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal — prompting many to ask: Is his guest list really a list of potential running mates?

Actually, they’re focusing in more closely than that.

To some, the most intriguing guest is Louisiana’s 36-year-old Indian-American Gov. Jindal.

Who’s Bobby Jindal?