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Clinton barbs begin to take toll on Obama

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. waves to supporters during a primary night rally in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo / March 4, 2008)

BY LETTA TAYLER | letta.tayler@newsday.com

1:12 AM EST, March 5, 2008

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SAN ANTONIO, Texas - A political eternity has passed since Barack Obama's Super Tuesday tie with Hillary Clinton.

In the scant month since that 22-state contest, Obama had assumed an unstoppable aura, drawing thousands of swooning fans to rallies and amassing 11 straight wins against a candidate whose victory had seemed assured.

Then unexpected "turbulence," as Obama termed it Tuesday morning, hit his campaign in the form of relentless attacks from his rival. Those barbs may be one reason the upstart King of Camelot last night failed for the third time to politically slay the queen.

Clinton's projected victories Tuesday night in the trophy states of Ohio and in morsel-sized Rhode Island suddenly made Obama appear merely mortal. His only sure win was tiny Vermont.

And that could cost him momentum, political analysts say, particularly since Clinton had already twice rallied after near-death experiences her loss in the New Hampshire primary and her tie with Obama on Super Tuesday.

Speaking before Texas was called for Clinton, a sober but defiant Obama publicly congratulated Clinton and John McCain, who last night became the de facto GOP nominee, but insisted he will still win the race.

"We have nearly the same delegate lead that we did this morning and we are on our way to winning the nomination," he vowed to subdued cheers at an outdoor rally here shortly before midnight.

"Sí se puede!" he added in this largely Latino city, using the Spanish for his mantra "Yes we can!"

Obama already had a strong lead in pledged delegates and complex, proportional formulas for allotting pledged delegates were expected to help him retain his edge.

But "the longer the campaign goes on, the more chance there is for the magic to wear off," Jack Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College in California, said of Obama.

Obama, who was 20 points behind only weeks ago, could still stage another comeback. "He doesn't have to knock her out in every state [to win the nomination]," said Jennifer Palmieri, a former aide to ex-President Bill Clinton and presidential candidate John Edwards. Still, Palmieri said, losing both states "is going to feel like a moment when he could have extinguished her candidacy and instead it was given a whole new life."

Obama took time out Tuesday afternoon to pay basketball in what is now his voting-day ritual. In recent days, he has struggled to deflect Clinton's attacks on his commitment to fighting al Qaida in Afghanistan, his sincerity in criticizing the North American Free Trade Agreement and his ties to a Chicago real estate developer on trial for fraud

"There's no doubt that if you're being attacked everyday that it creates a sense of turbulence in the minds of people," he said. But, he vowed, the criticism "will just make us stronger. It's like a training camp."