John McCain and conservatism and rightside politics will go dark during this national political conversation for the next 6 months.  How great is that!

The Republicans have settled on a nominee. Meanwhile we're still fiddling around. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad that Obama has come along and challenged the politics-as-usual crowd and we haven't just anointed Hillary, but it does put us at a competitive disadvantage.

On the Republican side, all the focus, all the money, all the planning, will go to McCain. Go dark? They're going to start hitting on one or both of our candidates  right away.

If we don't have a nominee by the last primary, we'll be infighting for 3 months until the convention and then have an 8 week general election. All that time the Republicans will be hammering us, and advertising their side of the story. It's this 3 months that worries Howard Dean the most I think, and why he's been saying that if no one backs out by the last primary he's going to have to sit down with both campaigns.