On Fox News Sunday, Karl Rove explained why John McCain had to distance himself from the conservative radio host who tried to use Barack Obama’s name against him. “Using his middle name helps Obama, it doesn’t hurt him,” he noted, adding “I think people look at it and say ‘hey look, that’s one step too far.’ You’re trying to leave an implication that he’s a Muslim when I know he is not. A lot of times attacks in politics fail–in fact, they turn into a negative for the person who’s doing the attacking–because people think it’s gone too far. And this, frankly, goes too far.” That’s not to say Obama’s untouchable, however; Rove pointed to one possible area of attack going forward: “Now, having ties to Louis Farrakhan and his anti-Semitic comments, that’s a reasonable question.” The Democratic primary isn’t quite over yet, but we’re nearing the end. Regardless of who wins the remaining states, the math makes Obama the prohibitive favorite going forward. Mike Murphy laid out the weakness of the Democrats’ system of apportioning delegates compared to the Republican counterpart on Meet the Press:
(Murphy also suggested Tom Ridge as a potential VP for John McCain. You heard it here first, though not everybody likes the idea.) Because it’s exceptionally unlikely Clinton can win the primary fair and square, the Clintons must decide whether it’s worth tearing the party apart to get the nomination. Matt Dowd warned against such a course on This Week. Whoever is “leading on pledged delegates, the party has to unite, the Democratic party has to unite behind that person. Because Barack Obama is the one that has motivated the voters in this country right now that the Democratic party needs to sort of establish a sense of leadership going forward. That’s the younger voters in this country that haven’t turned out in years gone by, and if the Clinton machine puts the screws on and is allowed to take the nomination because they’ve gone against the rules or gone against what the voters said, then your ability to motivate those voters in the fall” disappears. And that, Dowd added, “is John McCain’s dream.”
And let us close with a remembrance of William F. Buckley, delivered by Face the Nation‘s Bob Schieffer. He ended the show by recalling his first meeting with the conservative giant, when the two shared the stage of a seminar panel.
