From blogger columnist Dick Polman:
Now, Clinton and Obama will inflict themselves on the voters of Indiana and North Carolina and continue to make themselves less attractive to the general electorate. Obama’s weakness among working-class whites – glaringly exposed in Pennsylvania – raise questions about his viability in Rust Belt swing states. Clinton’s incessant attacks may have helped her win Ohio and Pennsylvania, but they have come at a price – driving up her negatives in the national polls, broadening the perception that she is untrustworthy, and generally damaging her standing with independents who like McCain already.
And the longer Obama and Clinton battle, the more invested in victory – and resistant to unity – their partisans will become. Right now, as many as 25 percent are vowing to support McCain or stay home in November if their candidate is denied the nomination. Some of that is probably just angry talk, the kind that is cheap in April. I suspect we’ll know more in June. If the primary season concludes with a scintilla of clarity, perhaps the fence-sitting superdelegates will tilt decisively and end this thing.
But if there is no clarity in June, and if (for example) Clinton spends the summer grasping and clawing at a wounded Obama, like the Terminator after its skin had been stripped and its legs blown off . . . well, we know what could happen at convention time, and beyond.
Democrats are probably in no mood to take advice from a founding Republican, but Abe Lincoln’s famous warning to the nation seems apt at the moment. He said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” And he would know. He was instrumental in consigning the fractious Whigs to the dustbin of history.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.