I don't think we should jump to that conclusion, at least not now.

Yes, the joke around Washington, D.C. during election years is that Democrats turn their intra-party battles into circular firing squads at times.

1980 was a pretty good example, when Sen. Edward Kennedy took on a sitting President in fellow Democrat Jimmy Carter.  Carter won, but then was trounced by Ronald Reagan.  It took the party 12 years to get back to the White House.

But one thing about this Barack Obama vs Hillary Clinton grudge match is that there isn't much daylight between the two of them when it comes to their beliefs.

Oh yeah, they have some different ideas and plans.  But for the most part, they are aligned pretty closely in terms of ideology.  It's not conservative versus liberal, or even liberal versus moderate.  This is liberal versus liberal.

Let's say that back on January 8 in New Hampshire, what if Obama had won that primary?  I think the race would have been over, if not that evening, then a few weeks later after his blowout win in South Carolina.  Super Tuesday would have been much different most likely.

If Obama had been crowned the nominee back then, there would have been no battles between him and Clinton in states like Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. 

Yes, Obama lost all three of those primaries, but he spent crucial time in each of those states introducing himself to the voters.

In a perverse way, if this race goes all the way through the June 3 primaries in Montana and South Dakota, then Obama will have campaigned in all of the Lower 48. 

That might not have happened if he were Obama The Nominee on the night of February 3rd.

Compare this John McCain.  McCain's fight for the nomination ended on March 4th.  Since then he has had a fairly light campaign schedule.  He certainly hasn't sat at home, but he's not being pushed either, so he's not stuffing his days chock full of rallies, town hall meetings and more.

I don't know the answer off the top of my head, but I would be surprised if McCain has been in every one of the Lower 48 states at this point.

He will still have to "introduce" himself to some voters. 

Yes, McCain does get to watch the Democrats beat each other up, but it might not be the right time to assume that he can start measuring the curtains at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

But what about the negative attacks, you ask?

A new Pew Research poll says 50% of those surveyed feel the Democratic race has become too negative, though another 35% feel the campaign is too boring.

Are the Democrats sowing the seeds of defeat?

"The idea that this has been a much more negative election than ones we have seen before is simply not true," said American Enterprise Institute political expert Norm Ornstein.

"Emotions are high because we have race and gender raised as issues," said Ornstein, who added, "this is a mild set of attacks compared to what we saw in 1980, 1988 and many other elections."