Obama has lost his luster with some voters. Why? Is it his race, or his class, or his gender or his age?

On this week’s Inside Washington, Mark Shields observed that you can drive from Massachusetts through Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania to Ohio, without hitting a major state that went for Obama. What’s the problem?

Democrat Pollster Peter Hart, who does the Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll, says Obama needs to make people feel safe,
not only as commander-in-chief, but also in terms of shared cultural values, which takes us back to the elitist label that was Obama’s albatross in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. As Mark Shields says, the voters need to see Obama taking his kids to the park.

All of the Inside Washington panelists agree that Clinton ran a better campaign in Pennsylvania, connecting well with blue-collar white voters, redefining herself, as Charles Krauthammer observes, culturally, although not ideologically.

What do the Pennsylvania exit polls show in answer to the question I posed above? Where did Obama run into trouble? Was
it because of his race, the elitism issue, the fact that Hillary Clinton is a woman, or was he shunned by older voters? All of the above to some extent.

The next two battlegrounds, excluding Guam on May 3 and its 9 delegates, namely Indiana and North Carolina on May 6, could
close the door on this endless primary season— could, if somehow Obama can convince Indiana voters that they can feel safe with
him. Otherwise, Clinton will just keep coming and coming and coming. I asked the panel why if she can’t win, and 
the math seems to indicate that, does she keep running? Their answer: that’s the point, she just keeps running. Obama will never grind her down. Never.

But Colby King quotes some influential African Americans who are for Clinton as saying the Obama run is more than
a candidacy, it is a movement, and if Obama is denied the nomination, they say, there will be consequences for the Democratic Party.

Oh, and for the record, here’s Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s schedule this weekend: Bill Moyers on PBS Friday night, a speech at the big NAACP Dinner in Detroit on Sunday and Monday he appears at the National Press Club here in Washington.

How about his timing?