Obama's 'Bounce' Falling Flat

June 17, 2008 -- Follow the bouncing ball in Obamaland . . .

Al Gore ends the suspense (a break with Lieberman, sure -- but did anyone else feel underwhelmed?). . . .

Patti Solis Doyle restarts the intrigue (and the rumbling -- does this mark the end of the "dream"?). . . .

Sen. Barack Obama tacks center -- and also left (and Sen. John McCain grabs a new opening on national security). . . .

Obama gets his passport ready (but is McCain acting as his travel agent?). . . .

If this is the high point in the "bounce," someone needs to put some more air in the ball. The new ABC News-Washington Post poll shows Sen. Barack Obama narrowly leading Sen. John McCain, 48-42 -- about where his lead stood a month ago, and about where Sen. John Kerry's lead stood four years ago at this time.

The premium Obama, D-Ill., earned for surviving the primaries -- as confirmed now by a number of recent polls -- still leaves McCain, R-Ariz., well within striking distance.

Surely it's getting tiresome for Obama to have to continually confront his electoral challenges -- but the fact remains that something is preventing him from capitalizing fully on the sour national mood toward Republicans.

It's "the conundrum of the 2008 presidential election: If everything is so good for Barack Obama, why isn't everything so good for Barack Obama?" per ABC Polling Director Gary Langer.

"In a shift, McCain's doing better this month than last among women, particularly married white women, while Obama's doing better among men," Langer writes. "Obama has work to do in his base, as well: Among Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton for president, about one in four, 24 percent, prefer McCain over Obama, and 13 percent pick someone else or say they wouldn't vote."

As in previous polls, McCain is having more success locking down support among Republicans than Obama is among Democrats.

"It is closer than it should be," ABC's George Stephanopoulos said on "Good Morning America" Tuesday. "Senator Clinton's supporters are still holding back."

"Obama and McCain are even among political independents, a shift toward the presumptive Republican nominee over the past month," Dan Balz and Jon Cohen write in The Washington Post. "On the issues, independents see McCain as more credible on fighting terrorism and are split evenly on who is the stronger leader and better on the Iraq war. . . . The presumptive Democratic nominee emerged from his primary-season battle against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton with improved personal ratings overall, but with no appreciable gain in the head-to-head competition with McCain." l

Obama, on why he's not leading comfortably,in an interview with ABC's Jake Tapper: "You know, my understanding is the current polls show me up, despite the fact that we went through an extraordinary primary. I mean, we went through a long, long contest. And Senator Clinton was a formidable and terrific candidate. And so while we were doing that, John McCain basically was getting a pass, both from the media, from you guys, as well as from other opponents. And so I think that that explains it."

And yet . . . political soothsayers can delight in explaining the latest high-profile staffing move by Obama.

It was a big day for hiring in Obamaland -- with enough boldfaced names to hold our interest. Kerry '04 veteran Stephanie Cutter gets the Michelle account (welcome back to the war room), and Jim Messina becomes the new campaign chief of staff (whatever that means).

And oh yeah -- Patti Solis Doyle gets the weirdest title of all: chief of staff to the vice-presidential candidate. That would be candidate Obama hasn't yet chosen (and who just might want someone of his or her own in the job). Also, that's the running mate who could be Solis Doyle's former boss (the one who fired her midway through the campaign).

"Could that mean -- tea-leaf reading time -- that Mr. Obama is really considering Mrs. Clinton for the No. 2 position, and wants to have an ally of her in place to ease the way? Perhaps," Adam Nagourney writes in The New York Times.

"Or perhaps not. More likely, the Obama campaign was looking for a high-profile spot to put Ms. Doyle, given her previous position, and most of the major roles in Mr. Obama's campaign are filled."

(Really? They didn't have any extra "senior adviser" tags laying around? How is this NOT a message to Camp Clinton, to give THIS job to an ousted campaign chief who wasn't even in touch with her old boss for the final months of the campaign?)

Some Clinton loyalists are pretty sure they know how to read it: "It's a slap in the face," Susie Tompkins Buell tells The Washington Post's Anne Kornblut. "Why would they put somebody that was so clearly ineffective in such a position? It's a message. We get it."

An anonymous former Clinton aide delivers the coups de grace: "Who can blame Obama for rewarding Patti? He would never be the nominee without her," the aide tells Kornblut.

Sensing a message? "Solis Doyle 'is the reason we lost,' said one Clinton insider, noting the campaign's profligate spending and other problems in the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses, where the one-time front-runner came in third," Maggie Haberman writes in the New York Post.

More delicious anonymity, courtesy of CQ's Jonathan Allen: "Translated subtitles aren't necessary," a "Clinton insider" tells Allen. "There is no other way to interpret this other than '[Expletive] you.' "

If that was the message -- why, and why now? If it wasn't -- how was that not made clear? (Does anyone need further proof that the lines of communication between the two former rivals are not quite fiber-optic quality?)

"The Solis Doyle appointment could be seen as a sign that Sen. Hillary Clinton is drifting down and out from Obama's vice presidential short list," Lynn Sweet writes in the Chicago Sun-Times. "The minus is that perhaps Obama should not have sent this signal so soon, as he is busy wooing disgruntled Clinton supporters."

Obama is fighting back in efforts to attract female voters. "On almost every single issue that's important to women, he's been on the wrong side," he told ABC's Jake Tapper Monday. "He has opposed efforts to protect women against some of the discrimination that they experience in the workplace. . . . You know, that's not going to be a track record that I think is going to be very appealing to women."