Susan Estrich: 'Arrogance Will Not Help Get Obama Elected'

After telling her readers on July 16 how nervous she was about Barack Obama's chances to win the White House this November, Michael Dukakis's former campaign manager, Susan Estrich, was clearly less impressed with the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee's world tour than most folks that consider themselves journalists.

In a column published Friday entitled "Arrogance Will Not Help Get Obama Elected," Estrich came across as a female version of the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz (photo courtesy USC).

In some ways, she was even harsher with her criticism (emphasis added):

The point of the trip, of course, was to give Obama gravitas on foreign policy issues, to help voters forget that he is only six years removed from the Illinois State Senate and only eight years from having his credit card declined when he tried to rent a car at the 2000 Los Angeles convention (a story he used to tell on himself). So there he was, looking, acting, being treated, like he is already president, walking in the footsteps of John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan in Berlin, even borrowing their words. [...]

In the prayer he left at the Western Wall, Senator Obama asked the Lord to protect him from pride and despair. Maybe he should have added something about protecting his campaign from the related danger of arrogance. It might be the biggest threat to Obama’s success. [...]

There was a crop of stories, as the trip was ending, suggesting that the Obama campaign, which used to pride itself on its openess and transparency as compared to the Clinton machine, has now abandoned openess and transparency in favor of tight controls, attacks on reporters who write less-than flattering pieces, and a particularly unattractive form of hardball that people who think they are on the way to the White House, or already there, often adopt. It will not serve him well. [...]

But even with all this, even with the press cooing, the Republican stumbling, his message muddled and his base shaky, the polls are showing the race neck-and-neck, Obama within the margin of error, behind in the key state of Ohio. And this without even factoring in, or trying to, just how many people are giving the politically correct answer to pollsters, saying they’re for Obama when they aren’t. This is, my solid blue friends, no time for arrogance. [...]

I’m not saying McCain will win...Obama could win, but he also could lose. If his campaign doesn’t understand that now, they will pay for it in November.

Estrich seems worried, wouldn't you agree?

Is it possible her concerns, much like Kurtz's, go beyond just Obama's arrogance? Could she be worried that her liberal friends in the media are appearing just as cocky about the upcoming elections, and are engaging in the same premature victory lap as their candidate?

Stay tuned.