Has McCain Got It?

Well, Rush Limbaugh says the Republican race is over.

"It looks like we've got our nominee, and maybe even our veep," he said yesterday. He told listeners that "McCain for all intents and purposes is the nominee," but will have trouble winning the South "unless he puts the Huckster on the ticket."

Limbaugh added a caveat: It's not over, anything can happen. But after winning New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arizona and California, John McCain is, at a minimum, in a commanding position. Reporters and pundits, though, are so mesmerized by McCain's battle against Rush, Sean, Laura and the gang that they have been slow to acknowledge the obvious. Mac more than tripled Mitt's delegate haul on Tuesday.

McCain deserves plenty of credit for hanging in there when no one--or at least few journalists--thought he was a viable candidate. His determination won him New Hampshire, which made the media treat him like Lazarus. But he also caught several breaks. He bet his candidacy on the surge, and if that had gone badly, McCain would have been toast. Other candidates--Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney--failed to unite the party's right wing behind them, allowing McCain to triumph over a splintered field.

Where are we on the Democratic side? Barack Obama's team makes the case that it won more delegates and states (13 to 8), while Hillary Clinton took the big contests--Massachusetts, New Jersey, Arizona and California. But the night didn't have the feel of an Obama victory. I think that's because the media drumbeat about Obama's momentum--the Camelot endorsements, the huge crowds, polls tightening in his favor, a last-minute Zogby survey showing Obama up by 13 in California--created a sense that the battle was going to break in his favor. Early exit polls (some posted by Drudge) showed Obama winning states that he wound up losing. So journalistic expectations were for a bigger night for the freshman senator, making a perfectly respectable showing feel like something of a letdown.

By the way, does Hillary have 582 delegates (NBC), 845 (AP), 818 (CNN) or 1,037 (CBS)? How come no one can agree?

Hugh Hewitt, a huge Romney backer, faces reality: "Senator McCain has a clear path to the nomination, Romney a very uphill battle, and Huck is fighting for 2012 at this point and for a win in a major vote outside of the south. Certainly they should all stay in through the primaries ahead because it isn't over and because our side needs the excitement of a campaign in such key falls states as Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania to keep the MSM from turning 100% of its attention on to growing the Obama phenomenon."

Romney, meanwhile, is facing more stories like this:

"Mitt Romney, who prides himself on 'wallowing in the data' before making tough decisions, now confronts an unforgiving mathematical landscape of delegate counts, polls, and popular vote tallies that suggest the odds are overwhelmingly against his presidential bid," the Boston Globe reports.

"With 499 total delegates up for grabs through March 4, Romney would have to win more than 80 percent of them to catch McCain, assuming the Arizona senator won none."

By the way, the networks screwed McCain by breaking away from his victory speech after five minutes or so to take Obama's speech, which went on for at least 15 minutes. And that's important because McCain was trying to mend fences.

"McCain's Super Tuesday speech wasn't really about Super Tuesday," says Byron York. "The heart of it wasn't about his wins in New York and California and Missouri and Illinois and New Jersey and Arizona and Connecticut and Oklahoma and Delaware. Rather, it was a message to those conservatives who are currently waging open war on McCain, arguing that he will never be acceptable to the base of the Republican party. McCain did not speak to them directly -- he'll do that Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington -- but there was no mistaking the meaning of his words. 'I promise you, if I am so fortunate to win your nomination,' McCain told the crowd, 'I will work hard to ensure that the conservative philosophy and principles of our great party . . . will again win the votes of a majority of the American people.' "