A Note of Caution

At risk of being the skunk at the garden party (or, more colorfully, the metaphor Lowell Weicker used to describe his role in Republican politics, hailed by the great WFB as a "triumph of artistic self-description"), it's perhaps wise to view all the reporting on the Democrats' disunity with a bit of caution.

Of course, it's hard not just to pull up a chair, pop up the corn and enjoy all the intra-party bickering between Obamaniacs and Clinton supporters, especially when there are polls that show that a significant number of Democrats might defect to McCain if their first-choice candidate loses the nomination.

But let's remember that we're in a very heated period on the Democrat side. Keep in mind that there was a lot of well publicized conservative unhappiness just at the time it became clear that McCain would win the Republican nomination. But thereafter, as emotions cooled and there was time for reflection, a lot of McCain's erstwhile opponents concluded that with all his flaws (and there are plenty), he's still far superior to either candidate the Democrats could offer. What's more, as more information about Barack's views, records and associates has emerged, some may be rightly rethinking their previous opinions about the potential for Obama to strip away disgruntled conservative votes from the Republican Party.

Given all this, couldn't a similar phenomenon occur on the Democrat side? It's highly possible, after all, that angry and disgruntled Democrats who are now threatening to cross party lines might reconsider once a final nominee has been selected and the race cools down. And couldn't this be especially true given the absence of any significant ideological differences between Barack and Hillary (after all, they're closer policy-wise than McCain and Romney)? And might some of Democrats who think they'd be willing to support McCain reconsider that decision, after the party's attack machine goes to work to "acquaint" its rank-and-file voters with the Arizona senator's "true record"?