Obama's Speech and the Campaign

    Obama's speech on race in Philadelphia yesterday was wonderful rhetoric and the reaction has been almost universally positive. But will it help his campaign? On that, of course, the jury is out and we won't have any answers until at least the Pennsylvania primary in a month. Remember that Republican pundits tended to love Mitt Romney's speech earlier in the campaign on his faith, too, (though it wasn't nearly as good), and in retrospect, it certainly wasn't the political plus they said it was.
    For what it's worth, the hunch here is that the speech didn't advance Obama's cause nearly as far as some of his supporters might like to admit. He needs to be recasting his rhetoric more to attract white working-class voters -- a subject we'll be addressing in tomorrow's column.