Not Much Damage to Democrats

There's a CBS/NYT poll out today with Hillary up 12 over McCain and Obama up 11. It's an outlier compared to the other polls, but I think the dynamic is going to be between a big Democratic win and a small Democratic win.

This isn't to say that McCain won't poke his head in front in the polls while Obama and Hillary go at it. But McCain is a quadruple threat for political failure as a presidential candidate. McCain is advocating unpopular policies like continuing the war in Iraq, cutting corporate taxes, and privatizing social security. He's also gaffe-prone and paying for it with his "100 years in Iraq" comment. Third, McCain is a disorganized candidate who hasn't ever been effective at fund-raising. And finally, McCain does not have the support of conservative activists. I've never thought McCain had a real shot at winning and there's no reason to think he does now.

Obama and Hillary are still hammering on each other really hard and the effect of that is to muddle the picture in the sense that the eventual Democratic nominee doesn't have a big lead over McCain. Recently, Hillary's been going up in the polls while Obama's numbers have been temporarily hurt by the Jeremiah Wright story and the incredibly stupid "bitter people" gaffe. Both are rising and falling as the news cycles from Hillary's Bosnia mistatement and Obama's difficulties play out. But they're both still muddled in relation to McCain.

I don't think the muddled picture is a bad thing at all. Hillary's big lead from last fall was extremely fragile and she didn't have enough time to recover once the initial balloon was punctured. The same thing would happen if the Dems were 20-25 points up now. That number would crash as soon as Obama or Hillary goofed up something minor like immigrant driver's licences and the McCain-friendly mainstream media would be working overtime to make sure that such goofs happened.

The Democrats are in good shape now and it's easy to imagine a Democratic nominee stretching out his or her lead in October and winning big in November.