Pundits Seeing McCain Upside with Clinton-Obama Fight Dragging On

WASHINGTON — Having bad stuff come out about your opponent: Valuable.

Having the other side spend its money to publicize bad stuff about your opponent: Priceless.

There are upsides for the Democrats (huge turnouts, record money, big enthusiasm) in their long, increasingly bitter presidential primary battle. But experts say and numbers show there are dangerous downsides, too.

Claremont McKenna College political scientist John Pitney sees probable GOP nominee John McCain benefiting as Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton spend their time and donors' dollars delineating each others' flaws.

"The longer it goes on, the angrier the Democrats get at each other, the more potential there is for damaging information to emerge about either candidate," Pitney said, noting it's brought to you by Democratic dollars. "Basically, this process outsources the (GOP) opposition research to the Democrats."

Though some note that the ongoing Democratic campaign has helped Obama and Clinton amass strong organizations in many states, some Democrats see nothing but carnage.

"It is time for Democrats to stop fighting amongst ourselves and prepare for the tough fight we will have against John McCain in the fall," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said in endorsing Obama, a move that triggered another round of unpleasantries between the campaigns.

A recent Gallup Poll quantified the potential damage. Survey numbers collected March 7-22 "suggest that the continuing and sometimes fractious Democratic nomination fight could have a negative impact" on the party's chances of winning the White House, according to the report.

Twenty-eight percent of Clinton backers said they would vote for McCain over Obama. Nineteen percent of Obama backers said they would vote for McCain over Clinton.

The pollsters noted there is always some of this during primaries, and by November "there will have been several months of attempts to build party unity around the eventual nominee."

"Still, when almost three out of 10 Clinton supporters say they would vote for McCain over Obama, it suggests that divisions are running deep within the Democratic Party. If the fight for the party's nomination were to continue until the Denver convention in late August, the Democratic Party could suffer some damage as it tries to regroup for the November general election," the report said.

Obama spokesman Reid Churlin avoided directly addressing the pros and cons of the campaign's continuing nature, but said, "We are going forward in making a positive case about Barack Obama to the American voters ... that's the work that's got to be done." Asked whether the negative turn in the campaign could splinter the Democrats in the fall, Churlin said, "After eight years of the George Bush administration, Democrats know we need to get a Democrat into the White House. And we're confident that Democrats are going to come together for that purpose."

On March 5, the morning after McCain clinched the nomination by winning primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, he declined to pass judgment on the impact of a prolonged Democratic battle.

"I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing," he said, noting the possibility that Democrats could benefit from the prolonged attention.

At McCain headquarters, aides now are ready to make the good thing/bad thing decision.

Good thing, they say.

"The Democrats are clawing their way to the bottom," said adviser Mark McKinnon. "By extending their nominating process, they have given McCain an enormous gift, which is the ability to run a general election campaign while the Democrats continue to tear each other down."

Another adviser said privately he had been concerned that McCain would be forgotten as the Democrats fill the airwaves.

"But that has not proven to be the case," the adviser said. "On the upside, you continue to see that the two candidates are pushing each to the left and as they are forced to flesh out policy ideas that end up being the old tried and true Democratic playbook in order to still woo a Democratic primary voter instead of a general election voter. There is a positive to that."

Wrong, says Clinton adviser Phil Singer.

"Senator McCain's campaign and its allies might take comfort today, but rest assured once November rolls around they will be quaking in their boots because we expect Senator Clinton to be the nominee and she will already have amassed a strong coalition of voters who will support her with full strength," Singer said.

Obama has expressed concerns about the primary fight and how it could affect the party's effort to win the White House. In Greensboro, N.C., last week, he told reporters: "I want to make sure that the tone of this campaign creates a situation where the Democrats are going to win in November."

Earlier this month, David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, acknowledged the tricky situation.

"We don't want a protracted Democratic primary fight that diverts us from the ultimate mission, which is to defeat the Republicans," Axelrod told reporters.

For now, McCain is using the time to organize, raise money and do some campaigning. It's an effort that has not been without downside, including his recent Iraq comments that mixed up Sunni and Shiite.

While McCain has sometimes struggled on the stump, the Democrats have been providing fodder for the GOP's campaign against whoever is on the ballot.

It was typified in a 53-minute period last Wednesday when the Democratic campaigns lobbed what have become routinely aggressive memos about the other.

Both were addressed to "interested persons." The Clinton campaign thought interested persons should know how unqualified Obama is.

"We are happy to discuss Sen. Clinton's foreign policy experience and her record overall. Unfortunately, the Obama campaign doesn't want to discuss its candidate's record and prefers personal attacks instead," the memo said. "Sen. Obama knows that if he focused on his experience he'd get questions about the shortcomings in his record and the efforts he has made to embellish it."

The Obama camp thought interested persons should know Clinton has problems with the truth. The memo centers on her admission that her retelling of a visit to Bosnia torqued up the danger factor.

"Unfortunately, Clinton's fantastic invention of a sniper-raked landing is only one in a growing list of instances in which she exaggerated her role as First Lady," the memo said, pointing to "serious questions not just about the rationale for Senator Clinton's campaign, but about her willingness to adhere to the truth."

To political scientists like Pitney, there's not much positive in this kind of attention.

"The cliché is there is no such thing as bad publicity," he said. "Well, just ask Larry Craig. Neither Clinton nor Obama needs the attention to get name identification. Both are well-known to the public. The additional information people are getting now tends to be negative."

Not a problem, insists Clinton adviser Singer, who says there is nothing being said that will be hard to reconcile when one of the Democratic candidates inevitably endorses the other.

"Campaigns are supposed to be hard fought," Singer said. "That's what makes Democrats strong. The things that unite Democrats are much stronger than the things that divide Democrats. Their common beliefs and values and putting an end to the Bush era and addressing the challenges facing the country will forge a bond greater than steel."

Maybe, maybe not, says Karl Rove, now an informal adviser to McCain. From his perch at Fox News, Rove said recently he's waiting to see how the Obama-Clinton campaign evolves as the April 22 Pennsylvania primary approaches.

"That's a long time to get down in the mud and get vicious and nasty, pull out the knives, stab each other a couple times, draw blood and create wounds that will last all the way through November," he said.

"As a Republican, I'm happy to see (Obama) go after her on ethical behavior ... because she is going to respond in kind. And it will get ugly and mean and there will be deep wounds," Rove noted.

To some, the Ronald Reagan-Gerald Ford race for the 1976 GOP nomination is a good example of what can happen when a primary battle drags on. Ford was the incumbent, having replaced Richard Nixon when he resigned.

Ford, who went to the convention 117 delegates short of the 1,130 needed for nomination, prevailed but only after taking hits from conservatives who preferred Reagan.

In November 1976, Ford, leading a party divided by the nomination fight, lost to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

"It wasn't so much that there was negative or scandalous information, but the bad blood from that fight hurt the Republicans in the fall," Pitney said. "The bitterness lasted for years. There are definitely parallels (in the current Democratic fight). The extended contest is keeping Obama and Clinton focused on each other instead of the fall campaign."

"For the Republicans," Pitney said "the healing process has already begun. For the Democrats, the hurting process is under way."

Upside for the Democrats?

"All this will be moot if we are in recession on Election Day, in which case the Democrats could probably win by nominating a turnip," he said.