Barack is not connecting with the children of the Reagan Democrats. Obama is going to have to figure out how to reach out to white, middle-aged men.

From The Washington Post:

Obama's losses Tuesday in Texas and Ohio -- coupled with his Feb. 5 defeats in California, New York and New Jersey -- have . . . given supporters of Clinton an opening for an argument that winning over affluent, educated white voters in small Democratic enclaves, such as Boise, Idaho, and Salt Lake City, and running up the score with African Americans in the Republican South exaggerate his strengths in states that will not vote Democratic in the fall.

If Obama becomes the Democratic nominee but cannot win support from working-class whites and Hispanics, they argue, then Democrats will not retake the White House in November. "If you can't win in the Southwest, if you don't win Ohio, if you don't win Pennsylvania, you've got problems in November," said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a Clinton supporter.

Even some Obama advisers see a real problem. "Ultimately, all that matters is how the nominee stacks up against John McCain," said one adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity, referring to the senator from Arizona and presumptive GOP nominee. "Right now, Barack is not connecting with the children of the Reagan Democrats. That's a real concern."

Obama and his allies counter that California and New York are firmly in the Democratic column and that, as the party's nominee, he could carry them just as easily as Clinton.

[M]any Democratic elected officials are worried. "No one's jumping up and down in Okeechobee, Florida, saying we've got a perfect ticket," agreed Rep. Tim Mahoney (Fla.), a moderate, unaffiliated Democrat in a swing district. "If you're a Barack Obama, you're going to have to figure out how to reach out to white, middle-aged men."

"A lot of the states he's winning are states that we're not going to win in November," said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), a Clinton supporter. "It's not a strategy that bodes well, in my opinion."

Obama aides . . . insist that it is a strategy that will work. Even after Tuesday, when he lost three out of four contests, Obama maintained his delegate lead. Indeed, his strength in the parallel caucuses in Texas may have actually given him more delegates than Clinton, even though she won the popular vote by 51 percent to 47 percent. But his campaign faces a legitimacy test that is beginning to resonate throughout the Democratic establishment: Can Obama win the big prizes?

With Pennsylvania looming, Obama has few good options. Some advisers say he should stick to a plan, hatched before Tuesday's defeats, to spend some time in the next weeks traveling to Europe, Israel and Asia to bolster his credentials for the general election. But if he cedes the state completely, he destroys his strategy of winning big in the small states and staying close in the big ones.

Axelrod and other Obama aides said they have learned their lesson from Tuesday. Rather than accept Pennsylvania as a tiebreaker, they will play down their chances there and keep the focus on states such as North Carolina and Indiana, where they think their chances are better.