Now yes, Clinton is still in the running, but I think everyone is settling in to the thought that she’s finished. Obama will certainly act that way (though he’s also likely to continue to keep an eye on her and smack her down if she gets too uppity - he’s not going to repeat New Hampshire, not now.) I think Clinton is also adjusting to that reality, or at least the reality that she’s going to have to start thinking about November as well, regardless of who’s the ultimate winner of the pirmaries.

Hence the fence mending and conciliatory gestures towards Obama. She won Kentucky, she won West Virginia but after Indiana, all these victories have essentially been Pyhrric for Clinton. Her bid went south there after she failed to put enough space between herself and Obama there and got crushed in North Carolina. Her hopes are now pinned solely on the DNC, but she’s also lost her superdelegate lead. It’ll take something even bigger than Wright to blindside Obama now, and not only will it have to be big, it’ll have to be perfectly timed to leave as much doubts in the heads of the DNC as possible with as little time as possible for Obama to recover.

So, for all intents and purposes, the primary is over and the general election campaign is beginning in earnest for the Democrats. How will they take on McCain.

To be fair, the current narrative has been that McCain has done a lot to strengthen his position vis-a-vis Obama during the drawn out Democratic primary, that Clinton voters won’t vote for Obama etc. etc.  Unfortunately, McCain had a lot of ground to make up to begin with. The Republican party is shattered and at its lowest point since the 90’s. He lags badly behind both potential rivals in fund raising. Republican turnout has been dwarfed by Democratic enthusiasm and he will soon be going up against the most formidable grassroots movement in decades. I don’t know what the Republicans have been smoking when they thought Obama would be a choice target (or they were just saying that to mask the fact that they’re scared shitless) but Team Obama may be a more formidable opponent than Clinton ever was.

As we’ve been saying here on this blog since the beginning, McCain has little hope of success. The best that could have happened would be for him to even the playing field. If the Dem primary ends here, he wouldn’t even have achieved that. He’s spent his time shoring up his shaky right flank, but the results aren’t impressive, what with the Paulites planning their revolt. And he hasn’t done enough to win over the center of America that’s become so important in this election season - while he’s been trying to shore up his base, the rest have been left with little to go on. Will his campaign be up to the test? He’d better hope so because very soon, Team Obama is going to be barreling down his way.