Rove speaks the truth?

“A long Democratic battle doesn’t automatically help the Republicans. In fact, it hurts the Republicans in certain ways. Mr McCain becomes less interesting to the media. Stories about him move off page one and grow smaller. TV coverage becomes spotty and short. There are not yet big and deep and unbridgeable differences between the two Democrats and there is plenty of time to heal most wounds (except, perhaps among the young if Mrs Clinton were to win). Continuing to build a profile and lay the predicate for the short fall campaign against either Democrat becomes the challenge for Mr McCain while the Democrats battle it out.” — Karl Rove

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama know this. Which is why most of the debates focus on the minutia (e.g. campaign strategies, traditional vs. non-traditional experience), and exaggerating how the Republicans have damaged this nation.

The fact that the DNC finally has a solid and agreed upon platform before going into primaries says a lot. And you see it in the coverage. Television news networks who play this as a “America’s Next Top President” enjoy the gridlock, because it provides all the tension, drama, and glitz of reality TV that they’ve wanted.

I saw this on Tuesday at our watch party. MSNBC and CNN both had a majority of clips that were not Huckabee/McCain, but rather Clinton/Obama. The networks aren’t going to desert something that has mobilized so many people to vote; it has already become a story they don’t have to sell.

What this means in terms of the “storyline” of the nomination bids, is McCain might engender more desperate tactics to attract news attention. However, Rove is right when he says that the young Dems will feel extremely wounded if Clinton secures the nomination. On an apathetic, semi-rural college campus of 12,000+, I’ve seen more people interested in elections than in the past. I’ve also heard from a lot of people who felt betrayed by the 2004 election, that if Clinton secures the DNC bid, they’re jumping ship to McCain.

Karl Rove’s resumé suggests that he knows what he’s talking about, and is more right than progressives would like to admit.

• Alive! – WSJ.com (via BBC’s Justin Webb which was found via the Slog)