The Democratic party is coming apart at the seams

Matthew Continetti (Weekly Standard) gave a breakdown on C-Span on McCain's dilemma.

As all the attention remains on the Democratic side, McCain could become invisible and lose momentum.

However, the Democrats are tearing themselves apart right now, so that could benefit McCain.

McCain's trying to prepare for a general election campaign, but he doesn't know which general election campaign. If it's Hillary, then he'll try to win independents. If it's Obama, he'll go after "McCain Democrats."

First of all, this analysis is exactly right. If it's Obama, McCain cedes much of the independent vote, but can make inroads with Hillary's lower-class voters through an alterization strategy. If it's Hillary, he plays the independent card. I've tacked against the McCain's-only-chance-is-Hillary conventional wisdom because motivating independents is more difficult inherently, and very very difficult when you have a huge long track-record of legislative votes that will be picked apart with a fine-tooth comb. Plus it's harder to attack Hillary because she's a woman.

Here's the answer to "McCain's dilemma." Don't worry too much about struggling to stay relevant. It's certainly not a good thing to appear to have dropped off the face of the planet, so he has to worry about it to some degree. But McCain has had a charmed campaign so far, and his luck is only continuing with what's going on with the Democrats.

What's going on is the Democrats are ripping themselves apart.

It was the Obama campaign that started it, by going after Ferraro. Then Obama was on the defensive with the Jeremiah Wright story.

How did the Jeremiah Wright story get going?

The Politico:

The fracas started Thursday morning, when ABC’s “Good Morning America” ran a Brian Ross expose on Wright that included old video of him saying: “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God bless America’? No, no, no. Not God bless America. God [expletive] America.”

According to a caller on the Matthew Continetti interview, the clips were played on the Rush Limbaugh show the Thursday before, followed by other right-wing radio hosts. A search on Limbaugh's website did not verify this, however.

From the NYTimes:

On Friday, Senator John McCain’s campaign forwarded to reporters an article in The Wall Street Journal in which Mr. Wright was quoted as saying, “Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run,” and accusing the United States of importing drugs, exporting guns and training murderers.

The point is, it doesn't seem to be a Clinton-initiated story, though plenty of people on the blogosphere think this. And it very well could be.

The important thing is what people think anyway. A lot of Democrats across the country have voted. In the process, they've identified themselves with their candidate. When this happens, they start to get emotionally involved--my candidate can do no wrong, is just misunderstood, is viciously attacked by miserable opponents, etc. The negative campaign will rip the Democratic party up. There is a lot of anger concerning Hillary's tepid disavowal of Ferraro; Olbermann's rant was striking, as is this interview with Hazel Trice Edney, who asked Hillary at a campaign event how 4 out 5 black people were offended by Bill's ghettoization strategy in South Carolina. The negativity between the candidates in recent days has been poisonous.

Humpty-Dumpty has come apart on the Republican side, and we're witnessing the same thing now for the Democrats. It's McCain who's the clear winner in both.