The Long and Winding Road

At Real Clear Politics, Tom Bevan examines the impact of a certain radio host urging Republicans to vote for HRC as a way of keeping what he sees as the weaker candidate alive:

"Did Rush Limbaugh put Hillary over the top in Texas? Some quick, back-of-the-envelope math based on the exits shows:

"Republicans represented 9% of the electorate in Texas. Out of a total of 2.857 million votes cast, that's roughly 257,000 votes. Obama won Republicans more narrowly than usual, 52-47. In vote terms, that translates to roughly 134,000 to 123,000. Overall, Clinton won Texas by just under 100,000 votes.

"It's a close call, but unless the vast majority of Republicans who voted for Clinton (more than 80%) did so at Rush's suggestion, they probably didn't put Clinton over the top."

Despite his 10 straight victories, did Tuesday's losses expose some real vulnerabilities for Obama? The New Republic's John Judis says yes:

"Obama has to worry about the Reagan or Bush Democrats, white working class voters who used to be Democrats, but often back Republican presidential candidates. Bill Clinton won many of these voters back; but Al Gore lost them in 2000 and John Kerry lost them in 2004. Many of these voters are not participating in the Democratic or Republicans primaries--and they'll make the difference in November in states like Ohio and Missouri. But of the voters that are participating, Clinton did much better among them, winning over 60 percent of them in Ohio.

"Could Obama win these voters in the fall? There is no precise way to tell from the polls, but one rough measure is to look at how racial factors affect voters. Many white working class voters abandoned the Democrats in the '80s because of the complex of issues that surround race--including crime, education, and welfare. Obama could have a problem among these voters because he is an African American."

HuffPost's Marc Cooper says Hillary can't win "democratically"--although the superdelegates are part of the party's process and everyone agreed to play by those rules. But Cooper says "the more steely-eyed amongst us . . . would do well to psychologically prepare for the nomination going, somehow or another, to Hillary Clinton. Which means, in turn, that Democrats ought to simultaneously prepare to be beaten by John McCain."

One flaw in that argument: McCain is trailing Obama by 12 and Hillary by 6 in hypothetical fall matchups, a WP/ABC poll says. A good talking point for Obama, but it has less resonance if Hillary's ahead, too.

If you saw McCain at the White House yesterday, it was interesting how he kept mentioning President Bush's busy schedule in saying he'd be happy to have the president stump for him:

"President Bush lavished praise on Sen. John McCain, the newly minted Republican presidential nominee, at a carefully choreographed Rose Garden event Wednesday aimed at GOP loyalists," says the Chicago Tribune, "but McCain will face a serious challenge in deciding how much to campaign with the deeply unpopular president at a time when skittish voters are demanding change."

No sooner does McCain clinch the nomination than Fred Barnes offers him some advice:

"The most important is to bring Barack Obama down to earth from his pedestal in the heavens. He's still the likely Democratic nominee, after all, despite Hillary Clinton's primary wins yesterday. And he's mostly gotten away with campaigning as if he's on a mission to purify America, not merely running to capture the presidency.

"McCain must also organize a turnout effort to match President Bush's in 2004--or exceed what Bush put together. This is necessary because it's clear the Democratic turnout is going to be larger and more enthusiastic than it was four years ago.

"And he must gear his campaign to attract independents while not antagonizing conservatives, who constitute the Republican base . . .

"Unless McCain deflates the Obama balloon, he hasn't got a chance of winning the general election. Hillary Clinton has done a bit of this, and the press has finally decided to ask Obama a few tough questions (though not many)."

Hey, it's only March.