This is the question that I am asked over and over lately by the Spanish press. I talked about it a bit in my weekly interview in TV Intereconomia last Friday:

I refered to Howard Dean’s comments to the Washington Post saying “he is ‘less concerned than a lot of Democrats’ about the consequences of the nominating contest, noting that the primaries are drawing hundreds of thousands of new voters to the party rolls and that in 60 days, that will be more important than the combat between Clinton and Obama.”

A couple weeks ago I cited a Gallup poll that show both Obama and Clinton beating McCain in the so-called “purple states”(not red=Republican nor blue=Democrat but somewhere in between). This is much more significant than the ever changing national polls showing potential match-ups between the three candidates because the presidential election is won by winning these states and since almost every state’s electoral votes are awarded on a winner-take-all basis all is takes is a slight margin to win.

Democratic leaders have already been saying this but today the Washingon Post reports that Democrats are registering in record numbers:

“The contest between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama has engaged enough new voters to change the political makeup of the country, experts say. The next several months — and the general election in November — will reveal the extent of the shift. Is it a temporary increase in interest resulting from a close election between historic candidates? Or is it a seismic swing in party realignment that foretells the end of the red-blue stalemate?”

Americans want change and yet another Gallup Poll shows us how deep this desire goes: Bush’s 69% job disapproval rating is the highest in Gallup’s 70 year history! Whether he likes it or not, McCain will be tied to this legacy throughout the campaign. And speaking of McCain’s campaign,there was fairly little notice of his dismal showing in Pennsylvania: he lost 27% of the Republican vote there to Huckabee and Ron Paul–further illustrating the lack of interest his party faithfuls have in him.