Most liberals are defending the best parts of Obama's record, not for his sake, but because we don't want those things undone by a Republican later on.

He probably made things even worse by saying that he'd improve race relations more than Obama has. I understand that presidential candidates are supposed to think they can do everything better than their predecessor, but come on, that was pretty tone deaf.

Should they be fatal for his nomination? No, but they lost him some points in a race where he needed to gain about that same amount.