Associate Editor Bret Schulte brings us this item:
As the violence in Iraq continues despite greater troop presence, Democratic strategists see Republican candidates facing an increasingly daunting task of keeping the White House after 2008. Most vulnerable, insiders say, is John McCain, the staunchest supporter of the war among GOP candidates. Once seen as the inevitable GOP nominee, his campaign is faltering badly. While plenty believe he'll turn his luck around--his campaign staff is stocked with former Bush campaign people--others see it as nearly finished.
"The general feeling around town is that McCain is done," says a strategist with a top Democratic consulting firm. "And if any Republican wants to win the general, he has to break with Bush on the war."
With the GOP ticket loaded with hawkish hopefuls, Democrats are feeling buoyed. "Most people think it's ours to lose at this point," says one insider. "And we're certainly capable of losing it."
Their No. 1 worry: Rudy Giuliani, who's surging in fundraising and in the polls. "He may be a problem. He puts so many states that we own in play--New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania."
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