Is McCain the Big Winner?

Not surprisingly, one of the big questions coming out of yesterday's results is whether the real winner was John McCain and the GOP. The prospect of a protracted primary fight among the Dems while McCain sits back and watches his eventual opponent get bloodied and dirtied certainly seems like it improves his chances. Indeed, Ezra Klein over at the American Prospect spins out a scenario that would almost certainly spell doom for the Dems:

Clinton's problem now is that she doesn't need to beat Obama, she has to convince the superdelegates to beat Obama for her. And this requires a different sort of argument. Even under assumptions very favorable to Clinton, Obama is likely to end the primaries with 100-or-so more pledged delegates than she has. Her only hope is that the party elders, the so-called superdelegates, will grow so uncomfortable with Obama's weaknesses that they'll intervene on her behalf, risking the ire of their constituents, the fury of African-American voters who feel betrayed by their party, and a convention storyline that blames a smoke-filled backroom for overturning the will of the voters. That's a tall order.

To convince them to do so, she'll need to fatally wound Obama. But attacking that ferociously will destroy her candidacy, too, and infuriate superdelegates who see her irreversibly bloodying the Democrats' likely nominee, and thus hurting the party's chances for victory.

If you're rooting for a Democrat to be in the White House come January, then this has to send shivers up your spine. But is it likely? Will a month or two more of Obama and Clinton going after one another mean smoother sailing for McCain?

Probably so, but also probably not as much as it might seem right now. November is still eight months away, an eternity in election time. Think about how different the race seemed eight months ago. Of course the degree of nastiness in the primary now will reverberate somewhat down the line, but come September, there will be one Democratic nominee and one Republican nominee and they will spend the last two months battling it out. It's in those last two months that the general election will be won and lost.

One last thing. A year ago, the conventional wisdom was that the Democratic candidate would have significant advantages over the Republican. For one thing, Americans have been pretty reluctant to give any one party more than two terms in a row. For another, President Bush is extremely unpopular, and even given the relative decrease in violence, Iraq is still unpopular as well. Add in the souring economy, and you've got a recipe for Democratic victory. None of that changes because of a primary battle. As long as neither candidate pursues a "scorched earth" policy, those existing advantages will still be there for whomever, Clinton or Obama, emerges victorious.