Inside Politics

Litmus test

“John McCain has to decide just how comfortable he wants the conservative base of the Republican Party to be with his candidacy,” John Fund writes at www.opinionjournal .com.

“Although he touts his conservative credentials on the campaign trail, it’s no secret that Mr. McCain has often sought an arm’s-length relationship with many conservatives. Should he lose the Florida primary [today], it will be in no small part because he didn’t do more to seek an accommodation with conservatives,” Mr. Fund said.

“A good litmus test of how Mr. McCain’s relationship with conservatives stands will come at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, which opens Feb. 7, just two days after the Super Tuesday primaries.”

“CPAC, considered the nerve center of conservative activism, this year is expected to draw more than 6,000 attendees. It will provide Mr. McCain with a fresh chance to build bridges now that he is closer than ever to becoming the GOP front-runner. An invitation has been extended for him to speak; so far his campaign has not made any formal acceptance.”

Good timing

“John McCain has just had a heck of a week. He’s peaking at the right time in Florida, perhaps just in time to come away [tonight] with the Sunshine State’s 57 convention delegates as well as momentum into Super Tuesday, just a week after Florida’s primary,” Larry Thornberry writes at www.spectator.org.

“In boxing, when a fighter flurries at the end of a round he may win it even if he hadn’t been the best up to the flurry. It’s called stealing a round. Bad name, but a legit strategy. If you’re susceptible to sports metaphors, as I am, this may be the way you see the last few days for McCain,” Mr. Thornberry said.

“And what an important round Florida will be. Besides the large number of delegates at stake, this will be the first time McCain can show what he has without any help from independents. Only Republicans can vote in the Florida Republican primary.

“The biggest event in the McCain week came Saturday night when he got the endorsement of popular Florida Gov. Charlie Crist in front of about 500 well-dressed Republicans and [lots of] television cameras at a Lincoln Day dinner in St. Petersburg.

“This endorsement, which got a lot of play in Florida and across the nation, came barely more than 24 hours after Crist stood right in front of me and a bunch of other reporters in Tampa and said he would likely not endorse any candidate in the primary and hadn’t even made up his mind who he would vote for. ’I’ll have to figure that out by Tuesday,’ he said. I guess he did with a couple of days to spare.”

United no more

“As this cycle began, Democrats looked united and prepared to take advantage of deep divisions in the Republicans’ ranks. But the increasingly bitter and personal attacks exchanged by Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton suddenly raise the possibility that the eventual Democratic nominee will have to heal wounds that are as deep as those in the GOP,” Stuart Rothenberg writes in Roll Call.

“Could Democrats, who are unified in their dissatisfaction with George W. Bush and have been pleased with their presidential field, really become so divided that they give a surprising opening to the eventual Republican nominee? Yes,” Mr. Rothenberg says.

“The turn in the Democratic race probably shouldn’t be surprising, considering the stakes involved and the reputation of the Clintons for doing whatever needs to be done to win. But few seasoned political observers expected the Democratic contest to degenerate as far as it has into a nasty slugfest.

“Had Clinton won both Iowa and New Hampshire and locked up the Democratic nomination quickly, we wouldn’t be witnessing the current Democratic messiness. But when Obama shocked Clinton in Iowa, the race morphed dramatically, forcing the campaigns to re-examine their assumptions and strategies. Clinton apparently concluded that she no longer could afford to stay above the fray, and her husband (and the family’s allies) reacted with the ferocity of a wild animal protecting its young.”

A small gain

Election predictions are under way, and one veteran congressional analyst says he expects the Democrats to make only a small gain in House seats in November.

“Democrats have more House takeover opportunities than do Republicans, though nothing approaching the 75 GOP seats that Speaker Nancy Pelosi referred to as ’in play’ in a fundraising e-mail. The [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] currently is focusing on 45-50 GOP seats,” says Stuart Rothenberg in the latest issue of the Rothenberg Political Report.

“Republican strategists acknowledge that the current environment is difficult but correctly note that the party has a number of credible challengers to freshman Democrats, particularly in the most fundamentally Republican districts that Democrats won in 2006,” he says. “Projections this far out aren’t worth much, but we currently expect a small Democratic net gain in the mid single digits. That could well change, however, as races develop — or fail to develop.”

Bumbling Bill

“The message from South Carolina Democrats last Saturday could not have been clearer: Bill Clinton is on the verge of ruining his wife’s campaign,” John Mashek writes in a blog at www. usnews.com.

“Or even if she survives the primary, she has already been weakened for November and the general election, especially if the Republicans nominate John McCain,” Mr. Mashek notes.

“If you think that verdict is too harsh, Clinton got just over 25 percent of the vote. Yes, Barack Obama had the advantage of a huge African-American vote, but her showing was still dismal.

“The former two-term president was all over the Palmetto State, blistering Obama and the press for their treatment of his wife. With the Clintons, when they are wrong, it is always someone else’s fault, never theirs.”

• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes .com.