Why (I suspect) McCain went after that NC GOP ad

This will be my last post a few days, as I will be travelling to New Jersey for my sister’s wedding.

By now, dear reader, you have likely become aware of “the ad” – the one by the North Carolina Republican Party that tries to tie Jeremiah Wright to the Democratic candidates for Governor of the Old North State through Barack Obama, the ad John McCain has ripped.  Reaction in the rightosphere as ranged between “how dare he?” and “what was he thinking?” (From on High is closer to the latter).

Most assume McCain is doing this to preserve his maverick/nice-guy image.  There may be some of that, but I suspect something else – something McCain can’t really mention publicly: he needs Barack Obama to win North Carolina.

What was looking like a Democratic route has become a competitive race, as Clinton and Obama reveal each others’ weaknesses to the electorate at large, to McCain’s benefit.  Adding to McCain’s good fortune are the role of the Democratic “superdelegates,” who can, in effect, either tell the slim majority of Democratic voters to jump off a cliff, or succumb to that slim majority and back a badly weakened candidate in Obama.

However, this scenario – the Democratic perfect storm - only works for McCain if Obama actually “wins” the popular vote, which seemed a sure thing until, well, Tuesday.  The margin of Clinton’s victory actually gives her more votes (not, delegates, of course, but votes) – if one includes Florida and Michigan.  More worrisome, she could end up with more votes if one only includes Florida, unless Obama does what he is supposed to do in North Carolina (i.e., win by double-digits).

It’s fairly clear now that Obama is the weaker candidate, or at least the one with far more downside than Senator Clinton; thus McCain has ample incentive to prefer he win the Democratic nomination, although if Clinton “steals” the nomination, the Democratic Party will tear itself apart.

The problem is this: if Clinton ends up “winning” the popular vote, a lot of Democrats will surmise that she won’t be stealing the nomination at all – in fact, she will have a powerful rationale for claiming the nomination.  Thus the Democrats could in fact avoid the trap they accidentally set for themselves.

Looking at the calendar, all but two of the remainig states are favorable to Clinton – North Carolina and Oregon.  North Carolina is big enough to ensure Obama will have more actual votes than Clinton (he’ll have more elected delegates in any event), but if he loses North Carolina, or the race is close, than all bets are off.

In effect, McCain is taking a page from Rush’s Operation Chaos, only in North Carolina, it’s Obama, not Clinton, whose success causes more trouble for the Democrats.

McCain can’t tell Republicans to cross over and vote Obama in NC; that would be too obvious.  However, he can try to make sure Obama suffers as little damage as possible in the state – and that’s exactly what he’s doing.

Of course, I have no idea whether or not I’m right (the campaign certainly won’t confirm it) and we won’t actually know if it will work – intentionally or not – until May 6.  Either way, the one thing to remember is that whomever wins both Indiana and North Carolina is the sure-fire winner of the night, and may very well be the nominee for the Democrats (yes, even if it is Clinton).

If, however, the states split, then the winner, once again, will be John McCain.