Super Tuesday 2 Aftermath

Chaos reigns!

The summary of yesterday's Super Tuesday 2 is: exactly as predicted.

First, the easy part.  McCain officially sealed the Republican nomination, and was endorsed by President Bush today.  McCain can now begin campaigning and fundraising for the general election.  As McCain said in his victory speech, "The contest begins tonight."

On the flip side, the madness in the Democrat party will continue, probably until the convention.  Through all four states yesterday, Clinton only picked up a net handful of delegate votes, so the situation really hasn't changed at all, other than a major momentum shift away from Obama.  This continues (and probably escalates) the in-fighting between the two Democrat candidates, and everyone knows that.  Take your pick of headlines, but I'll use my hometown one, the K.C. Star: "Democrats sweating as nomination process remains unresolved".

Rush Limbaugh led the charge in suggesting that a lot of Reps cross over to vote for Hillary to keep just this sort of in-fighting going as long as possible.  As such, he can claim at least partial credit for the renewed bickering.  We probably won't know just how many Reps voted blue for some time, but it should be interesting to see the numbers.  Naturally, much of the MSM is condemning Rush (and Reps who followed his suggestion) for 'corrupting' the political process, but the blindingly obvious response to that is: how does it feel?  Remember the stories from a few weeks ago about how Democrats and Independents were voting in the Rep primary in huge numbers (sometimes as much as 25% of the total vote)?  At the time, the MSM said that was a great example of voters reaching across the aisle and exercising their political right to follow the candidate of their choice.  What's changed now?  Apparently, it's a great and noble thing for Dems to vote in the Rep contest, but it's a corruption for Reps to vote in the Dem contest.  A better illustration of hypocrisy doesn't exist.

Interestingly, Hillary is floating the idea of a combined ticket with Obama.  Obama is saying no thanks, that's a premature suggestion.

From what I've seen, read, and pondered, here are a few of my thoughts on the matter.  With respect to McCain, how would these various situations play out?  I think it would be the following:

McCain vs...
...Clinton would be the best chance for McCain to win; she carries a TON of baggage and is beatable.
...Obama would be a potential disaster; McCain appears unwilling to attack him, so he'll probably continue to coast on nothingness and win easily.
...a Clinton/Obama ticket would be tough to beat, but at least Hillary's baggage would be in play; I think McCain would ultimately lose.
...an Obama/Clinton ticket would be next to impossible to beat.  All of the weaknesses in a McCain/Obama matchup would exist, with the additional problem of going against the Clinton machine.  McCain would be toast.

Just some way-too-early predictions for you to think about.  But, there is a LOT of time between now and November.  And, with the continued fighting between Clinton and Obama, there's plenty of potential for more negatives to stick to Obama (and Hillary won't hold back).  If Hillary picks the fight first, it'll be much easier for McCain to run with those things without looking like he's fighting dirty.  Also, the Rezko trial should provide some fodder for political slams on Obama, too.

Another recent phenomenon is that the MSM seems to be cooling just a bit on the Obamamania.  I guess that's what happens when even Saturday Night Live picks up on the softball coverage.

The next big primary is Pennsylvania in late April.  There should be plenty more fireworks between now and then.

There's my two cents.