Will the Republicans benefit by deciding first?

The final clause of the concluding paragraph of the main leader in the Independent this morning reflects a sentiment that I guess a lot of site visitors totally agree with. Looking forward to next week the paper notes:

On Tuesday, these two thrilling contests go nationwide. We hanker after a McCain-Obama match in November, but our more immediate interest – and surely that of US voters – is in any result that keeps this absorbing campaign alive.

To me the idea that everything could be settled by next Wednesday is dreadful. It is so exciting politically and so interesting from a betting perspective that the last thing I want is for it to be all resolved next week. I want this to go on.

Yet what are the politics of this? If, as seems likely, John McCain looks even more of a certainty than he is a the moment will it make things harder if the two Democratic contenders are still slugging it out? Their energies will be focussed on each other while McCain, no doubt, will start sowing doubts about both of them.

The big election, after all, is what happens across the whole of the US on the first Tuesday in November. Could the Democrats bid to re-take the White House be damaged if the nominee question is not resolved until, maybe, the convention in August?

I think that this is more than a possibility. We shall see.

In the betting there has hardly been any movement between Obama and Clinton. John McCain, meanwhile, has moved to 0.18/1.

Mike Smithson