Why Democrats should not lose hope

Yes, the primary is dragging on for far too long. Yes, it is tiring to hear our candidates abusing each other and not John McCain. But have you looked at McCain lately?

Well he's agreed to public financing, so he will be badly outspent by either Democratic candidate.

81% of the public thinks the country is on the wrong track. 90% believe we are in a recession.

The war is as just as unpopular as ever.

And then, as Ross Douthat astutely notes, there's the little matter that John McCain has apparently run into a very hard ceiling in terms of electoral support. Ross explains,

But by all rights, this ought to be a peak time for McCain's numbers - not the peak, necessarily, but certainly a high point. His right-wing critics are making nice with him, his favorable ratings are sky-high, and his opponents are too busy driving each other's negative ratings upward to spend any time (or money, more importantly) putting a dent in his halo. Moreoever, the Democrats' intra-party tensions are bound to diminish once the party picks a nominee: At least some of the Hillary supporters who tell pollsters that they'd vote for McCain over Obama may actually follow through on that pledge, but a lot of today's McCainocrats will come home to the Democratic fold when all is said and done.

Yet even with all this going for him, McCain's poll numbers are bumping up against the same 45 percent ceiling that they've been hitting since December. If the election were held today - a pretty good day for McCain, all things considered - he'd probably lose to Obama, and might lose to Clinton as well. That doesn't mean he will lose, by any stretch, but it certainly doesn't bode well for November.

It can be very easy to get caught up in all of the micro-level controversies and day-to-day campaign action. When you do that though you risk losing big picture perspective. It's easy to be persuaded of one thing on Monday and the complete opposite thing by Wednesday. In campaigns though the macro-level trends are what matter and there is no denying the fact that John McCain has a serious problem cobbling together anything close to majority support nationally.

This is a real concern for Republicans. Electorate concern over the state of the nation, the economy and the war will not abate by November. If John McCain can't get over 45% support when no one is actively campaigning against him he is in trouble.