Then there’s President Bush, a deeply unpopular Republican in his second term. Plus a fractured party that harbors profound suspicions about its nominee, Sen. John McCain. Money shortfalls. Disasters both natural, as in Hurricane Katrina, and man-made, as in corruption and sex scandals. Party enthusiasm as lukewarm as it is ferocious in the opposing camp. A flock of GOP retirements in Congress that reflect deep gloom about the party’s prospects.
Add it all up, and the historical odds favor Democrats by a landslide.
But that’s before one adds Democrats to the equation.
With such a litany of GOP woes, McCain “should be behind by 25 points,” said Republican strategist Rich Galen. “Everybody gets to whistle past their own graveyard once in awhile, and maybe I am, but I will tell you that my friends who are senior Democrats, you have to take away their shoelaces and belts.”
Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are headed to an ugly collision, their very strengths as candidates hurtling them toward each other. Unless Obama pulls out a stunning upset in Pennsylvania this month that would probably dispatch Clinton back to the Senate, neither will be able to secure the nomination on the basis of primary votes alone.
That means that unless one drops out voluntarily, or implodes along the way with a strong shove from the other, about 800 party insiders and elected officials known as superdelegates will have to choose. If they don’t, the decision could wind up in a floor fight at the party convention in late August just nine weeks before the general election.
Since Clinton revived her campaign with March 4 victories in Texas and Ohio, the Democratic campaign has gotten nastier by the day, and the partisans on either side angrier.
Read it here: Democratic squabbles could give McCain a boost