Senator McCain looking Presidential while Democrats squabble

Against everything the media tells us, against all the appearances, against Obama’s rhetoric of “change” and Hillary’s devious ways of stealing elections, the truth is, John McCain may pull off the win after all. While it’s obviously premature to say that anything like a prediction can be made, an interesting trend is showing up. The Democrats continue to strike blows at one another, and every indication is that they will continue to do so until the convention this fall. Hillary Clinton does not give up a chance at power unless you drag her away under threat of the law, so she will likely fight this all the way until the end. (I believe it will be political suicide if she does, but that’s a good thing.) Whatever her chances, her presence in the race demands that Obama will have to deal with her. He seemed to be trying the tactic of ignoring her, and that clearly isn’t working.

If you buy into polling data, which does fluctuate, yes, but so long as it isn’t an exit poll, I believe, tends to provide at least a somewhat hazy picture of the facts, then this new poll by Reuters and Zogby will look very interesting to you. It shows Barack Obama’s national lead over Clinton down to just three percent, which is, of course, inside the margin of error of any poll. However, the more interesting trend is that McCain has now opened up a wide lead over Obama in a national election, and while his lead over Clinton has diminished somewhat, it still holds fairly strong.

A scenario seems to be emerging in which the Democrats fight it out until their convention in late August, while McCain can build his national support. His recent move of taking a trip to the Middle East almost as soon as he locked up the nomination is a stroke of genius, as it cements the image of McCain as a presidential figure in the minds of many, since that is the sort of thing that Presidents do. While the prospect of Hillary Clinton beating McCain in a head-to-head battle seems unlikely give how polarizing she is and how few right-leaning moderates would vote for her, a matchup against Obama means that McCain must start gathering support from that group now, which having the nomination locked up will allow him to do. IF McCain can capitalize on this built in advantage, then we may be looking at a President we can live with after all.