Doesn't Matter If Dems Fight: McCain Has Already Peaked

The bruising Obama-Clinton battle is giving Republicans hope and Dems heartburn, but those feelings are misplaced, bloggers right and left agree: John McCain isn’t gaining on either potential fall opponents—and might indeed have hit his ceiling. At a moment that “ought to be peak time” for McCain, Ross Douthat writes in the Atlantic, he’s stuck at the same 45% nationally he had in December.

In the New Republic, meanwhile, Jonathan Cohn re-assures the left, telling like-minded readers not to “have a conniption”: “if McCain is getting a free ride, it doesn’t seem to be doing much good.” Indeed, McCain is like a 1999 Internet stock—“great numbers, lousy fundamentals.” The eventual Democratic nominee will have plenty of time to soften him up. (More John McCain stories.)