If anyone ought to be skeptical about the notion that Barack Obama’s fall prospects have been damaged by the primary process, it’s the Clintons.

With Mr. Obama in mathematical control of the Democratic race (despite West Virginia), Hillary Clinton’s supporters have fallen back on the argument that Mr. Obama’s chances have been harmed, especially among those much-discussed “white working-class voters,” for the coming contest against John McCain.

It’s worth noting, though, that Bill Clinton himself had to overcome a very similar assertion—that he had emerged from primary season as damaged goods—on his way to the White House in 1992.  read more »

With John McCain as their candidate, Republicans are making the best of a bad political situation. But even with his considerable personal appeal and maverick image, there are fresh signs that the country’s fatigue with the G.O.P. label will be too much even for Mr.  read more »

There is, obviously, no exact precedent at the presidential level for the nightmare Barack Obama is now living thanks to his former minister’s all-too-eager embrace of the spotlight.

At a basic level, Mr. Obama’s opponents can and will note that the inflammatory rhetoric that has come to define the Rev. Jeremiah Wright—a caricature that the preacher rather willingly reinforced during his smugly defiant National Press Club appearance on Monday—raises questions about Mr. Obama’s judgment and values. Why would he spend 20 years in such a man’s church, presumably listening to variations of what the rest of America heard on Monday?  read more »

It’s apparently a revelation to David Brooks, among other prominent pundits, that the dreaded Republican attack machine plans to reduce Barack Obama to an ugly caricature. It shouldn’t be, of course.

Certainly, Mr. Obama, in the past few weeks, has provided his probable autumn opponents with ample raw material to portray him as only the latest in a long line of culturally out-of-step Democratic presidential nominees. Since this tactic worked so smashingly against John Kerry, Al Gore and Michael Dukakis, Mr.  read more »

Hillary Clinton and her campaign clearly believe that they stemmed the mighty Obama tide on March 4 with a heaping dose of fear.

The fear that they stirred, best encapsulated in the sure-to-be-immortal “red phone” ad in Texas, supposedly worked on parallel tracks: Some voters simply bought into the notion that Mr. Obama is frighteningly ill-prepared to handle a crisis; others may not have agreed with that but grew fearful that their fellow citizens, in the face of a similar and concerted Republican assault in the fall, would.  read more »

Here we go again.

Four years ago, we were treated to countless news stories about the supposedly dramatic inroads that George W. Bush and the Republican Party were making among Jewish voters, long one of the most bankable constituencies in the Democratic coalition.  read more »

As devastating as it was to her party, it was—in purely political terms—good news for Hillary Clinton when John Kerry finished inches short of George W. Bush in the 2004 election.

Ms. Clinton had opted to sit out the '04 race, a decision that placed the fate of whatever White House ambition she harbored in Mr. Kerry's hands. A Kerry victory in '04 would have taken the Democratic nomination out of play until 2012, by which time other Democrats—like Vice President John Edwards, for instance—would likely have emerged and eclipsed her.  read more »

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both capable of defeating John McCain in the general election. And, given the depressed state of the Republican Party and the restless mood of the electorate after eight years of George W. Bush, they’d both be favored to do so—even Mrs. Clinton, long derided as the most polarizing politician in the country.

But that hardly makes the electability question moot.  read more »

Imagine that you’ve somehow found yourself on trial, mistakenly accused of some criminal act that you would never even think about committing. A guilty verdict will destroy your good name and send you away to a very bad place.

When the trial opens, the eager prosecutor lays out the case, an avalanche of seemingly damning—but, in actuality, entirely circumstantial—evidence. You stew at the defense table, aching for a chance to respond.

But before your moment arrives, the 12 jurors decide they’ve heard enough. With the trial still ongoing, they each cast early “guilty” verdicts. When you finally take the stand and prove—like a scene out of Matlock—that you’ve been wrongly accused, the jurors are all far away from the courtroom, back at their jobs or maybe just lounging around at home. You lose.  read more »

Never let it be said that Republican primaries aren’t orderly.

John McCain, after a spectacular rebound from the early near-collapse of his campaign, is now in a prime position to win the nomination. Yes, he’s succeeding in part by holding fast to his original course as his opponents, for various reasons, have foundered. But he’s also there, like every Republican nominee in the last three decades, because it’s his turn.  read more »