Obama as a blank slate

What Obama just ran into yesterday was the reaction to being a "blank slate".

People have been defining Obama as what they want. He admits that people put their hopes and dreams onto him since they just assumed he believed what they believed. He hadn't defined himself clearly enough. That worked to build his campaign.

So still being a relative unknown to many voters, this go around Clinton was able to start to define him negatively.

Clinton was able to get into voters heads that Obama may not be what they hoped.

If you start having doubts about an unknown, it is hard to vote for him.

Was it dirty? Might it hurt the Democratic Party this November? Yes to both questions, but it saved Clinton's campaign.

Obama can comeback from this easily enough. He has to start defining himself to voters and he will have to answer the charges. So that means he will have to find forums that allow him to explain his relationship to Rezko and the house/land deal. He will need to keep renouncing and denouncing Farrakhan. He will need to show his knowledge of foreign affairs. He will have to keep stressing judgement versus experience.

It will be interesting to see if Clinton stays negative or decides to change direction for a while at least. I think she would be foolish to not go negative again if she needs to.

And only be doing a better job of defining himself can Obama blunt that attack.