The Campaign in 07

Marc Ambinder sums it up:

Let's take stock of the major developments in PY 2007 - that's Political Year 2007. There are really only two.

One is - Sen. Barack Obama tried, but has so far failed, to knock Hillary Clinton off her pedestal.

The other is: Sen. John McCain has been knocked off his pedestal. A different iteration of this dynamic has Rudy Giuliani replacing McCain as the frontrunner, but you'd have to account for the fact that Giuliani is down 10 from his early spring average.

The rest is really noise.

And yet Marc also reports that Obama will likely raise $28 - $35 million in the second quarter, compared to Clinton's $26 - $28 million. And she's already calling on Bill to campaign in Iowa over July 4. Sure, he hasn't knocked her off her pedestal. But she's the prodigious front-runner with the Clinton name and the Democratic establishment behind her. He's a freshman senator from Illinois. And it's June. McCain, however, is obviously in severe trouble. The dreadful prospect of a Romney-Clinton general election is still out there - alive and well. My view? The only way the Republicans can win the White House next year is if Hillary wins the Democratic nomination.