I think this campaign has shown that it generally takes at least 3 days before bumps from previous wins show up in the polls.  I would give it a full week to guage the effect of SC.

I think we should root against McCain because of his dangerous foreign policy. The military industrial complex has had a major effect on this country's psyche and economy over the last 10 years.  McCain getting elected will weaken the anti war framing of the Iraq war in the media and the casual voter.

The media is always an important consideration.

With McCain, we would obviously be fighting the mother of all uphill battles against the media in trying to rebrand him.

Romney, on the other hand, is ALREADY a joke with the media.  They don't like him and they already know he's a bullshitter.

If the matchup were Obama against Romney, god, the press advantage would be insane!

Let's also not forget that if Romney runs instead of McCain, he will stir up some religious doubts in potential voters and that may offset some of the gender or race related doubts(Hillary and OBama) by the milder bigots in the country.  

That soft Democrats who support McCain would be offset by hard-line Republicans who would vote for Hillary.  It may by a repeat of '64 where McCain's direct predecessor, Goldwater, experienced such a fractured convention that most of the traditional Republican support went to LBJ.

He's go a big hill to climb. Consider:

The animus against him amongst the Republican base. It always amazes me but it's huge. The reason is because he behaves like a democrat much of the time which is why he's popular with democrats. Repugs are not going to die for this guy.

Political landscape is massively loaded against him. Eight years of Republican disaster. Imagine those ad with him and Bush hugging each other. Message: if you liked Bush you'll love McCain. Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran is going to be played a lot.

His age and rather cranky persona. The guy will be 71 when he takes over for godsake. And he often looks it. I had great respect for Bob Dole who was similar in some respects but he will be positioned as pensioner who should call it a day.

The campaign. His grasp of some of the more complex issues is a bit shaky whereas Clinton handles them with consumate ease. She'll run rings round him in debates.

Gender issues. Given Clinton's huge advantage amongst women voters he has some serious baggage most importantly he wants to overturn Roe.

There's lots more. Anyone want to add to list.  

I agree with Todd's analysis.

Yes, we should all root for Romney over McCain.

...McCain will be very hard for any Democrat to beat in November.  It won't be a cakewalk for him, but he will be hard to beat.

Hillary will have a hard time beating him.

Romney is an AWFUL candidate - I'm thinking Mondale/Dukakis territory (and that's even before you get to the Mormon question).  He's a guaranteed loser.

McCain on the other hand, could win.  The hard-core wingnuts will hold their noses and vote for him in a heartbeat.  Some non-wingnuts respect him.

It doesn't matter... I do want to suspect who is more electable on GOP's side...

Hillary can and will beat anyone of them.

I don't know.  But, I too have heard Democrats tell me that if its McCain/Clinton that they'll be voting for McCain.  

Who could we best live with should they actually win the General Election?

I'm hoping Romney gets the nomination, but McCain would also be a disaster for the GOP. After all we learned in the 2006 mid-terms, does anyone here think that a candidate who wants to keep us in Iraq for 100 years can get elected in this country? Or someone who sings "bomb Iran" at his campaign stops? McCain is a nut when it comes to foreign policy and won't match up against Clinton, with her husband's peacetime legacy, or Obama, who was against the Iraq war from the start.

Well it would be a big gamble having Romney be the Repub nominee. I think it would be easier to be Romney than McCain, but I would rather have McCain be president than Romney. So, if Romney wins the Repub nominationa and wins the general election, then we are really screwed. If McCain wins the nominationa and the general, then at least its McCain, whom I believe is the easiest to swallow out of all the other Republicans running.

I believe that the Democratic nominee will win in November no matter who it is or who the Republican nominee is.  The big difference is whether our candidate will have the ability to campaign in every state in order to increase our Democratic Congressional majority or if instead our nominee will have to restrict campaigning to those few potential swing states necessary to insure victory.  Against Romney we will see better coattails for our nominee than against McCain.

I definetly want Romney to win. Now we can beat McCain and I think Democrats do that by connecting him to Bush in every single way they can. But it's going to be tough. With Hillary women are going to have to come in high numbers  with atleast 56-57% supporting her. For Obama he'll really have to get new younger voters out in droves. We have Democratic enthusiasm on our side. We have the issues on our side.

"Just yesterday I heard of yet another Democrat who has said he would consider voting for McCain, something I've heard over and over from moderate Democrats and independents. Now, I believe we could eat away at this low-information support for McCain fairly easily considering his consistent anti-choice position and the fact that his foreign policy would clearly be a continuation of Bush's, but the fact that he has this goodwill among otherwise Democratic voters I see as a problematic place from which to start."

You are underestimating the intensity of the disgust of many Democrats with the way that the Clinton's have gone about smearing, distorting, and disrespecting Obama.  It is not just "low information" voters who will abandon the Dems if Clinton is the nominee; many committed progressives will be looking to protest the Rovian smears of the Clintons.

To be honest, I do not know what I will do if HRC wins the nomination.  I have voted for every Democrat since I turned 18, in 1976.  I was furious with the ideologues that voted for Nader in 2000.  However, I believe that we need something besides politics as usual, something besides the politics of fear and smear.

Yes, I fully understand the very real policy differences between HRC and any Repub, but I think we need to seriously consider "protesting" Democrats who behave like Republicans. At the moment I am not sure what form that protest should take, but I can tell you that I am very, very angry with both of the Clintons, and very sad that so many of my fellow Dems not only tolerate such behaviour but seem to join in with relish.

I will be watching closely for the rest of the primary season, if Bloomberg gets in I will seriously consider voting for him even though my politics are much further to the left.

Root for Rudy, for now. And Hucklebee.

It's not who their candidate is. They all have various strengths and glaring weaknesses. The main goal is to have as many Republicans as possible continue to spend their money bashing each other instead of bashing our candidate. We want their nomination to be a free for all with an uncertain outcome for as long as possible, and definitely beyond the time we've settled on our nominee.

To do that, it's best to give Rudy a glimmer of hope in Florida so that he'll stay in through Feb. 5.

Seems to me, Paul is like Kucnich, in that he's in it for the vanity until the end, regardless of his chances. Mittens, Huckles and McDoubletalk still each have a shot at the nomination. I figure all three of them would lose handily to either Clinton or Obama, and their odds of losing get better the more they're locked in a contest with each other.

Only Rudy is in serious danger of dropping out early. Therefore, I want Rudy to pick up more delegates. COMEBACK OF THE CENTURY!

Personally, I say fear the McCain.  Who knows how he'd hold up in a long Presidential campaign, but why take the chance?  He's clearly the hardest one to beat at the moment.

Beyond that, I have one nitpicky, but I think very important disagreement with the diarist.  Todd writes: "He's actually quite sane on several issues that Democrats have a unique opportunity to claim as their own, among them fighting global warming, instituting comprehensive and compassionate immigration reform, opposing torture and closing Guantanamo Bay."

I hear what you are saying, but I'd say that's an argument FOR McCain.  The issues you raise should specifically NOT be partisan issues.  Do we really want elections to decide whether or not the U.S. tortures people?  Or do we want our fight against global warming derailed by a Presidential election in 2012 or 2016?

Personally, I'd rather see problems solved than issues claimed.

One thing that's interesting about McCain is that there are still a lot of conservatives that don't trust him one little bit - I've even had a few of them (co-workers usually) tell me that he's "pretending" to be conservative, but is actually a raging liberal (McCain-Feingold apparently really cut deep among these folks, or they just plain can't stand opposition to Bush under any circumstances).

So, I'd play that fear, that angle, against McCain as much as possible.

My two bits....

McCain is the best hope for the Republicans when it comes to the White House. In fact, he might be the only hope.

I'm rooting for Romney. He's undoubtedly the weakest Republican.

The more I believe that McCain will not be the nominee. It's simply amazing the level of distrust and outright hatred that many conservatives have towards McCain - I never realized it was that high. Even when he has won, it appears as though he is losing the conservative vote to Huckabee/Romney. I think Romney realizes this and will continue to pump money into these states, especially where the primaries are closed.

It's looking like Romney will be the nominee. Right now McCain is being held up by the media and his win in SC. Neither will last forever.

I think McCain would be easier to beat than Romney.  McCain is old and a Washington insider, at a time when people are looking for someone with energy and new ideas.

Don't underestimate Mitt though -- he has a very compelling record of personal achievement, he looks good on TV, and most people don't mind flip-flops, as we've seen from previous elections.

I freely admit that I've gone back and forth between absolutelu refusing to ever vote for HRC, but at the same time admitting that her election would 1) do wonders for women worldwide and 2) ensure that we don't have a president beholden to the religious wingnuts in the GOP. My problem is that 1) I think that the clinton cult of personality is in the long run damaging to the Dem Party, 2) that this campaign is positively unforgivable in the way they have used Rovian fear mongering and playing blacks and hispanics off each other and 3) I don't like the clinton's personally. Right now, if HRC is the eventual nominee, I would support McCain if the Dems would maintain/extend their lead in the house/senate. I know that there are many that will absolutely refuse to vote for Obama, but I think it's pretty obvious that the number that would never vote for HRC is much larger. Clintn is probably the only pponent that may push conservatives to rally around mccain - esp during an election year that only months ago seemed so out of reach.

Am I the only Democrat that thinks McCain might have better policies than Hilary?

If it's not Obama, I think McCain's the next choice.  

He's got experience, compassion, and tons of character.  He doesn't seem to care if he pisses off the Republican base, and with rare election year exceptions, he doesn't seem to care if he pisses anyone off really.  

What other Republican has worked with Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy, all while being the only major Republican critic of Rumsfeld and his idiotic policies?

I'd actually vote for him over Hilary or Edwards in a heartbeat.  It's not a difficult decision.