By Bob Morgan, Jr.

As the long, long primary season winds down, Democrats are taking a final look at their party's surprise frontrunner, Barack Obama. The picture that emerges is a very mixed one.

In recent weeks, the Obama campaign has been unable to close the deal against Hillary Clinton despite an ample fundraising advantage, losing in key states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, his campaign has been involved in numerous controversies. As liberal New York Times columnist Bob Herbert put it this week, "Mr. Obama seems more and more like someone buffeted by events, rather than in charge of them."

Perhaps Mr. Obama's biggest problem has been his relationship with his pastor of 20 years and spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright. Reverend Wright has been the source of all sorts of controversial statements, including ones in which he condemned America, made inflammatory comparisons between the United States and jihadist terrorists in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, and viewed the AIDS virus as a conspiracy against black people, This week, Mr. Wright launched on a widely publicized speaking tour in which he also took up anti-Israel themes and expounded a bizarre theory of the genetic differences between blacks and whites.

While no serious person believes that Senator Obama shares all of Reverend Wright's views, there is a legitimate question of why he frequented the pews of Mr. Wright's church for as long as he did. Mr. Obama, who earlier declared that, "I can no more disown [Mr. Wright] than I can disown the black community". has asserted that some of that Reverend Wright's remarks have been taken out of context and has noted that the pastor is apparently about to retire. Now, however, it seems that nothing less that a full repudiation of Mr. Wright is in order.

Then there is the matter of Mr. Obama's statements at a fundraiser in San Francisco that small town residents suffering from bad economic times "get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." This seemed like an extremely patronizing (and somewhat stereotyped) way of viewing small town Americans and also could reasonably be interpreted as saying that people were not sincere about their religious beliefs. The senator had to spend a great deal of time explaining these remarks and was generally trounced by Mrs. Clinton in non-metropolitan areas of Pennsylvania.

Finally, Mr. Obama's unusual involvement with the unrepentant radical William Ayers, allegedly involved in bombings during the Vietnam War, has also raised questions, although this may be a lesser matter. Mr. Ayers hosted an early fundraiser for the first Obama campaign for state senator and has continued to be serve with Mr. Obama on boards.

Because Obama has much less national experience and exposure than Hillary Clinton (even if her experience as first lady was derivative of her husband's tenure), Democrats (and indeed voters at large) are depending more on an intuitive feel about his judgment and character than on an assessment of his record. Mr. Obama has a compelling life story and certainly makes an impressive and inspiring speech. Moreover, as he showed during a pretty tough interview last weekend by Chris Wallace of Fox News, he is very capable of rebutting criticism in a coherent and convincing way. But, as they consider both his prospects in the fall against John McCain and the nature of an Obama presidency, many Democrats will have serious questions and concerns.