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Time To Panic?Obama's falling way behind Clinton in the polls. What should he do?

By John Dickerson
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007, at 7:19 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

On the same day Obama was giving his low-key tax speech, John Edwards' senior adviser Joe Trippi was going after Hillary Clinton with a meat hook over a fund-raiser she was holding. "That no one in the Clinton campaign—including the candidate—found anything wrong with holding this fundraiser is an indication of just how bad things have gotten in Washington—because there isn't an American outside of Washington who would not be sickened by it," he wrote.

Perhaps Obama can benefit from whatever paint Edwards can strip from Clinton, as Edwards benefited in 2004 from the fight between Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt. But so far, Edwards' attacks haven't worked against Clinton, and there's also no guarantee that the votes would go to Obama even if Edwards were effective.

Hillary will fall of her own weight. The story of fugitive fund-raiser Norman Hsu should keep any Hillary challenger happy. Having to return $850,000 in money he raised hasn't hurt Clinton much yet, but the scandal gives hope to her rivals that there are other controversies to come. As much as Clinton benefits from being the front-runner, she also has to bear all the scrutiny. Her subtle shifts make the nightly news, and her gaffes will, too. The Goliath falls story is irresistible: All it needs is a few inconvenient facts.

But she hasn't fallen yet. Despite mountains of dire predictions and lots of scrutiny, she's only gotten stronger. She was supposed to be cold and unappealing, but a recent Pew poll found Democratic voters had a more positive view of her than they have of any Democrat, and than Republican voters have of any Republican candidate. She's tough, and she's run a disciplined campaign. "She's only going to fall if someone makes it happen," says unaffiliated Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. "It's going to require a big whack."

Don't panic. There's time. Voters are more reasonable than pundits. Voters, particularly in Iowa and the early primary states, make their decisions late. As Mellman points out, more than two-thirds of the Democrats who voted in the 2004 Iowa caucuses didn't decide who to vote for until a month before the caucuses. Four in 10 decided in the last week. In 2004, 54 percent of New Hampshire Democrats decided within a week of the primary. John Kerry was lagging in third place until only a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses.

Gary Hart came out of nowhere to win New Hampshire in 1984. So did John McCain in 2000. But rising campaigns usually benefit from some fantastic moment. In the Republican race, Mike Huckabee still appears to have a possible breakout moment ahead of him. But Obama has already had his fantastic moment. Can he have a second? Absent a stumble by Clinton, it's hard to imagine an event Obama could create or policy he could put forward that would break open the race.

Raise a lot of money. If Obama has another great fund-raising quarter, it will give his campaign a boost, as his previous ones have. It will allow his allies to say that the real people are clamoring for him regardless of what the polls and pundits say, and it will give him the cash to sell his message on-air and continue building an organization in Iowa, the state where it matters and where he's doing the best. If he wins there, that may be the only boost he needs.

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John Dickerson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at .
Photographs of: Barack Obama in the article and on the Slate home page by Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images.
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