Bob's blurbs

Right-winger Novak makes a few good points on the 2008 race:

Clinton cannot catch Obama, and the bottom line is race. Obama won over 90 percent of the African-American vote in both states Tuesday, and that made life difficult for Clinton. Super-delegates flinch at going for Clinton because it would be seen as intentionally blocking the first black candidate with a chance to be nominated for president-threatening to alienate the most loyal element in the Democratic Party's base.

McCain's "honeymoon"-the interval between his clinching the Republican nomination and Obama's clinching the Democratic honeymoon-has ended. McCain has largely solidified his Republican base but still has to worry about evangelical holdouts, such as Virginia home-school advocate Michael Farris. Reports of non-support from former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee are not true, however. He still needs to worry about the broad lack of enthusiasm for him among Republican voters.

With Clinton about to be out of the picture, look for a big Obama jump in the polls to take a lead-maybe a commanding lead-against McCain. The dreadful state of the GOP, as reflected in its recent loss of a Louisiana congressional seat (see below), was bound to catch up with the presidential race. McCain cannot win without sustained battering of Obama, a tactic that McCain deplores.