Republican's Party Down, and McCain's Out of His Mind

Politico.Com says that the Republican Party is tanking in special elections and in opinion polls in the run-up to the November General Election, [which bodes ill for John McCain, particularly since he is simultaneously losing his bearings.]

By JIM VANDEHEI & DAVID PAUL KUHN | 5/10/08 12:49 PM EST

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McCain risks looking inauthentic and conventional if he solidifies standing with conservatives and then races back to the middle to appeal to swing voters. Photo: AP

John McCain is planning to run as a different kind of Republican. But being any kind of Republican seems like some sort of death sentence these days.

In case you’ve been too consumed by the Democratic race to notice, Republicans are getting crushed in historic ways both at the polls and in the polls.

At the polls, it has been a massacre. In recent weeks, Republicans have lost a Louisiana House seat they had held for more than two decades and an Illinois House seat they had held for more than three. Internal polls show that next week they could lose a Mississippi House seat that they have held for 13 years.

In the polls, they are setting records (and not the good kind). The most recent Gallup Poll has 67 percent of voters disapproving of President Bush; those numbers are worse than Richard Nixon’s on the eve of his resignation. A CBS News poll taken at the end of April found only 33 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the GOP — the lowest since CBS started asking the question more than two decades ago. By comparison, 52 percent of the public has a favorable view of the Democratic Party. Politico.Com

In a way, Hillary Clinton has been right in her analysis. Blacks will certainly vote for Obama, as will the whites who have put Obama over the top in the polls. In the current environment many Independents and even some Republicans will support Barack Obama for president. So, the only question is whether white voters who support Hillary Clinton would rather elect the first Black president or would rather vote to continue the Iraq War for 100 years, while also starting a fresh war with Iran before the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are concluded. The answer will tell us an awful lot about the progressive bonafides of Hillary Clinton supporters.