Ground Game

Ground Game is offline today taking care of some things away from the computer, but will return this weekend. Please send any tips, story suggestions or questions to epfeiffer@cq.com.

John McCain's moderate stance on immigration has caused him some serious grief within GOP circles, but pairs up nicely with the views of a strong majority of the overall electorate. That's why McCain's new outreach video to Hispanic voters is winning accolades from even lefty partisans like Matthew Yglesias, who calls the ad "shrewd":

McCain's mission is to communicate "I'm not a racist" to his most likely Hispanic supporters, and given the tendency of small business owners everywhere to love the GOP a specific focus on small business seems smart.

Hillary Clinton brought her case to USA Today arguing that she has the better general election demographics to take on John McCain in the general election:

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

Since liberal bloggers have proclaimed the end of her campaign en masse, it's not surprising they are treating her latest effort as less than helpful. It's actually irrelevant whether her comments rise (or fall) to the level of racism. They will be interpreted as such by enough Democrats to be damaging to her cause. Of course, exactly what that cuase is at this point remains strikingly unclear.

John Aravosis says Clinton's "race baiting" could hurt African American turnout for Democrats in the fall:

There sure is a pattern emerging here. The Clintons are using racism to try to win the nomination against a black man. And our party leaders are okay with it. (Well, in all fairness, our congressional leaders said that Hillary had better not adopt a "negative tone." They never said she couldn't adopt a racist one.) Is it any wonder blacks aren't voting for Hillary? They shouldn't vote for Hillary, ever again. If our party continues to give a thumbs-up to race-baiting in American politics in the year 2008, race-baiting in our own party, I'd be very surprised if blacks came out for us in November. Nor should they.

Clinton has so enraged the blogging class that she turns even cool headed writers like Reason's Matt Welch into name-calling "Hitlery" bomb throwers. Although, being the reasoned voice that he is, Welch does offer a tantalizing prospect for those who dislike Clinton and are having trouble measuring that personal distaste against what is a fair argument for her staying in the race:

I sincerely hope Hillary takes it all the way to the convention, even if that means I won't be able to watch cable TV for a few months. Few prospects would delight me more than seeing the Clintons stand up on a national stage in front of the political party they've long dominated and then get showered with richly deserved boos.

Even Jennifer Rubin at the conservative Commentary website seems a bit shocked by it all:

All those suspicions about her preference for a potential one-term McCain presidency rather than a two-term Obama one are only going to increase with comments like this.

The liberal blogosphere has been discussing the presumed end of the Democratic primary for nearly two months. And now that the media has "caught up" with their analysis, bloggers are largely reveling in their own perceived insights, with many pointing to this video of NBC's Tim Russert declaring the primary over:







 
Open Left's Chris Bowers:

Even though she has some good states left--West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico--it is extremely hard to see how Clinton catches up now. Obama's overwhelming advantages should start to sink in with the media now, especially given that he beat expectations despite Wright and arugula and whatever. Those attacks are not working.

The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen says that by enduring the extended primary, it is Obama who has come out as the "fighter":

Oddly enough, it’s now Obama who can make use of Clinton’s talking points. He’s the one who can persevere. He’s the one who keeps fighting, even after having been knocked down. He’s the durable candidate who bounces back from adversity.

MyDD's Todd Beeton, a Clinton supporters, says it's time to recognize that Clinton cannot win:

I no longer see a real path to victory for Hillary Clinton and I now believe Barack Obama will be the nominee of our party.

Now this isn't in any way to suggest that Senator Clinton should drop out -- you know where I stand on whether this primary has been good or bad for the party -- it's only to say that I now believe that she will. I saw it on Bill Clinton's face as he stood behind Hillary during her speech tonight. I come to this realization with no small amount of disappointment but I'm left hopeful as well. I've seen a new man emerge in Barack Obama over the past few days.

The Drudge Report provides two links this morning to Republican primary results in North Carolina and Indiana. In headlines meant to convey intra-party dissatisfaction with John McCain, Drudge declares:

27% OF REPUBLICAN VOTERS AGAINST MCCAIN IN NORTH CAROLINA...

23% GO AGAINST MCCAIN IN INDIANA...

A similarly gleeful tone was taken against McCain by liberal bloggers and some in the media after the Pennsylvania primary, in which McCain received 73 percent of the vote, compared to 16 percent for Ron Paul and 11 percent for Mike Huckabee.

Even though Huckabee has technically withdrawn from the race, his name remains on the ballot and allows evangelical voters to state their preference for a candidate running on "Christian convictions," whether they specifically support Huckabee or not. And Ron Paul has not stopped running, despite acknowledging he can't become president.

Even though McCain has wrapped up his party's nomination, he's still facing two "opponents" on each primary ballot. And Mitt Romney made a return appearance on Indiana's primary last night, taking home 5 percent.

But the question is, are his primary results really that different compared to what George W. Bush received after effectively wrapping up the nomination against McCain in 2000? Bush was considered extremely well-liked by the party's base, and was the frontrunner going back at least till 1999, up through when McCain officially withdrew on March 9, 2000.

So, what happened in the primaries after that? Results from the Associated Press show that Bush's numbers in 2000 are largely comparable to McCain's in 2008. For example, even in the June 6th South Dakota primary, Bush fails to cross the 80 percent threshold. In fact, Bush rarely crossed the 80 percent threshold despite having effectively wrapped up the nomination after Super Tuesday. Some highlights:

Colorado: March 10, 2000
Bush: 64.71
McCain: 27.12
Keyes: 6.57
33.69 percent vote against Bush

Illinois: March 21, 2000
Bush: 67.40
McCain: 21.45
Keyes: 8.96
30.41 percent vote against Bush

Pennsylvania: April 4, 2000
Bush: 72.47
McCain: 22.36
Forbes/Bauer/Keyes: 4.92
27.28 vote against Bush

District of Columbia: May 2, 2000
Bush: 72.79
McCain: 24.37

North Carolina: May 2, 2000
Bush: 78.60
McCain: 10.86
Keyes: 7.85

Nebraska: May 9, 2000
Bush: 78.15
McCain: 15.11

Arkansas: May 23, 2000
Bush: 80.22
Keyes: 19.77

Idaho: May 23, 2000
Bush: 73.45
Keyes: 19.10
None of the Above: 7.45
26.55 vote against Bush

Montana: June 6, 2000
Bush: 77.59
Keyes: 18.32

New Jersey: June 6, 2000
Bush: 83.56
Keyes: 16.44

South Dakota: June 6, 2000
Bush: 78.22
McCain: 13.75
Keyes: 7.68

Pundits and bloggers almost unanimously agree this morning that the Democratic nomination battle is over and Barack Obama has won. But sometimes even when a match if effectively over, the opponents must nonetheless finish the game. And that's how Daily Kos' Markos looks at news that Clinton donated another $6 million of her own money to her campaign:

With $11.4 million of her own money invested in the race, and still likely facing campaign debts, this may compel her to stay in the race. She can raise money while spending little to win West Virginia comfortably. Of course, Bill could always do a couple of speeches to pay off that debt rather than have her small-dollar supporters foot the bill. Having made over $100 million the past eight years, and with unlimited earning potential, the Clintons could afford it.

Delivering his North Carolina victory speech, Obama addressed the exit polls showing that both his and Clinton's supporters would be "dissatisfied" voting for the other candidate in the general election should their preferred Democrat lose.

While acknowledging that there have been "bruised feelings on both sides," Obama told the cheering crowd, "I am here to tell you I don’t believe it."

That was followed by lofty language declaring the election is not about him, Clinton, or John McCain. However, Obama quickly noted that a McCain victory would be allowing him to "serve George Bush's third term."

With North Carolina already called for Obama, the media is so far treating tonight's primaries as a victory placing Obama even closer to an official clinch of the Democratic Party's nomination. The lingering question has been whether the extended primary season reveals Obama to be a flawed and weakened candidate heading into the general election. But exit polling from both Indiana and North Carolina show that the potential fallout may be the animosity between Clinton and Obama supporters.

Marc Ambinder:

Forget the horse race numbers for a moment: if the surveys are accurate, the polarization within the Democratic Party has reached critical levels.

Ambinder's analysis shows that nearly 60 percent of Obama supporters in Indiana says they would be "dissatisfied" if Clinton is the nominee, while "nearly two thirds" of Clinton supporters say the same thing about Obama.

The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb:

Sounds to me like a best case scenario for McCain. Hillary probably isn't going to win this thing, and if she were to pull it off there's not much evidence that McCain could beat her in the fall. Right now she outpolls Obama across the board. So the hope is that the Democratic party becomes so divided that even in an atrocious year, a moderate and likable John McCain can steal the election. A split tonight pours $4.00 a gallon gasoline on that fire.

John McCain gave a speech this morning outlining his judicial philosophy. The speech didn't contain much of anything new to those who have followed Republican approaches to the judiciary: avoid "judicial activism," nominate Supreme Court justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas, etc. But for McCain, it's a speech he needed to give, and may need to give again, to assure movement conservative voters that he is of their ilk when it comes to future judicial appointments. The one interesting point was McCain cited the Gang of 14, which in his view, led to the successful nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Even if there's a lot of truth in his rationale, it's highly unlikely to be warmly received by self-described conservatives who see any degree of compromise on judges as an abject failure.

Marc Ambinder notes the press doesn't understand why McCain wanted to talk about his philosophy rather than debating the merits of significant past cases.

Writing that McCain's audience is "grasping it perfectly," Mary Kathering Ham writes:

I suppose it's natural that the press would assume McCain would spend an entire speech about the judicial system talking about policy instead of principles. The beauty of conservatives, however, is that they understand judicial philosophy is not about enacting preferred policies.

As Indiana and North Carolina voters head to the polls, most have their expectations set on narrow Clinton win in Indiana and a larger Obama victory in North Carolina. Does a 1-5 point Clinton win coupled with a 5-12 point Obama win increase the pressure on Clinton to dropout? Or, will any version of a split decision be enough for Clinton to continue?

The New Republic's Issac Chotiner says exit polls could affect how the media interpret the final results:

Remember, the night before Pennsylvania, many in the media were saying that a nine point Clinton win would not be so bad for Obama. Of course when the exit polls showed an even race at 5pm, all the pundits began to write Clinton off, only to later argue that Obama had disappointed.

Hot Air's Ed Morrissey notes that the Clinton campaign is now 'lowering expectations" for North Carolina, saying a 15 point Obama victory is possible:

We can expect plenty of expectation-setting today, but this is ridiculous. If Hillary dropped seven points overnight, she will have some explaining to do, regardless of how she performs in Indiana.

And Big Tent Democrat says it will be nearly impossible for Obama to lose North Carolina but that such a loss would signal a sea change in the campaign:

I wrote that Barack Obama can win the nomination today by sweeping North Carolina and Indiana. But the reality is Obama can not lose in North Carolina. If he does, then he is in serious serious trouble. Why? Because in order to lose North Carolina, Obama will have to garner less than 30% of the white vote.