Chuck Todd: McCain will be rooting for Hillary tomorrow

Chuck Todd over at MSNBC writes an editorial that highlights what most Obama supporters seem to believe and most Clinton supporters can't seem to grasp:  That the best thing that could happen to John McCain tomorrow is a Hillary Clinton victory.  Not because Todd believes that Hillary Clinton would be the weaker Democratic candidate, but because if Hillary loses, this turns from a primary race to a general election race.  And John McCain is nowhere near ready to compete in a general election race.  

Todd starts by pointing out that despite McCain's status as the front runner, a couple of months ago, his campaign was declared DOA.  While that makes his comeback remarkable, it also poses a number of problems.

There are at least two people hoping Sen. Hillary Clinton does well on Junior Super Tuesday: Clinton, of course, and Sen. John McCain.

The last thing McCain needs right now is to face a de facto Democratic nominee by the name of Sen. Barack Obama.

McCain's general election campaign is still in its infancy. It would not be a stretch to describe the campaign staff structure as skeletal. From the press shop to the fundraising team, the operation is thin, and understandably so. Obama’s campaign may be a movement, but McCain is the one who rode momentum to a nomination.

McCain is nowhere near ready to start a full on general election campaign against a democratic opponent with the entire democratic party behind him/her.  While Obama has set up strong operations in most of the states, from Idaho to Ohio, McCain got by on favorable press, despite being considerably outspent by his opponents.  He counted on Huckabee and Romney to split the conservative votes, so he could rack of delegates by winning small pluralities in the Republican's winner take all primaries. This allowed him to grad a huge lead in delegate count, even though most Republicans on February 5th voted against him.

On top of all of the organizational problems he faces, he faces an even bigger fundraising problem.  Even without counting all of the issues he faces with the public financing systems and his ability to pull out of it (which are considerable), he is still a terrible fundraiser with almost no fundraising network.  

And if a McCain vs. Obama race becomes semi-official on March 5, McCain could be facing a financial onslaught that will make Clinton vs. Dole in the summer of 1996 seem like a fair fight.

Consider this, despite being the defacto nominee since February 7th, when Mitt Romney dropped out of the race, McCain was only able to raise $12 million dollars in the month of February.  By comparison, Clinton, who has lost 11 straight and has not won a contest since February 5th, manages to raise three times as much.  When you add in the $50 million that Obama is expected to have raised in February, democratic candidates are outraising McCain at a rate of over 6 to 1.  

If the race ends March 5th, Clinton donors start getting behind Obama, and he is able to put his massive financing advantage towards taking on John McCain.  If Clinton does well enough to stay in tomorrow, Obama and Clinton will be spending their funds targeting each other. This will give McCain some more time to raise funds without having to spend any of it.  He will continue to take potshots at Obama in the media, and start building a war chest for whenever this fight is settled.

If Obama is the nominee as of March 5th, Todd thinks he can start to open up the electoral playing field much greater than Democrats have in the past.

Imagine this scenario: Obama starts raising $75 million a month between now and the late August conventions.

He starts using that money to play catch up in two important swing states – Michigan and Florida – where he has spent very little time.

He then attempts to expand the Electoral College playing field to places like:

   * North Carolina (a large African-American turnout coupled with a university "Research Triangle" that could get Obama to 51 percent);
   * Montana (the war is very unpopular there);
   * Colorado (the state’s been on the verge of turning blue for some time);
   * Virginia (an historic black turnout could give him the state);
   * Nevada (probably out of reach, but it’s a cheap state);
   * And maybe even a few others – West Virginia, Tennessee and Louisiana?

A settled nomination would be a McCain nightmare.  Infighting between Democrats is the best he could hope for.  That's why both Chuck Todd and I seem to be in the same boat in believing that the best thing that could happen to John McCain is a Hillary Clinton victory.