It will take a few more weeks for McCain to win the 1,191 delegates needed for the nomination, but he has already won the most important prize in GOP presidential politics: inevitability.

Tuesday is a mere formality.

And he never won more than one-third of the Republican vote in any state.

How did a Scoop Jackson Democrat win the GOP nomination? He didn’t.

Everyone else lost it.

UPDATE: They've picked up on our conversation at the Wall Street Journal.

True, retail sales fell 0.4% in December and fourth-quarter real GDP probably grew at only a 1.5% annual rate. It is also true that in the past six months manufacturing production has been flat, new orders for durable goods have fallen at a 0.8% annual rate, and unemployment blipped up to 5%. Soft data for sure, but nowhere near the end of the world.

It is most likely that this recent weakness is a payback for previous strength. Real GDP surged at a 4.9% annual rate in the third quarter, while retail sales jumped 1.1% in November. A one-month drop in retail sales is not unusual. In each of the past five years, retail sales have reported at least three negative months. These declines are part of the normal volatility of the data, caused by wild swings in
oil prices, seasonal adjustments, or weather. Over-reacting is a mistake.

A year ago, most economic data looked much worse than they do today. Industrial production fell 1.1% during the six months ending February 2007, while new orders for durable goods fell 3.9% at an annual rate during the six months ending in November 2006. Real GDP grew just 0.6% in the first quarter of 2007 and retail sales fell in January and again in April. But the economy came back and roared in the middle of the year -- real GDP expanded 4.4% at an annual rate between April and September.

With housing so weak, the recent softness in production and durable goods orders is understandable. But housing is now a small share of GDP (4.5%). And it has fallen so much already that it is highly unlikely to drive the economy into recession all by itself. Exports are 12% of the economy, and are growing at a 13.6%
rate. The boom in exports is overwhelming the loss from housing.

Personal income is up 6.1% during the year ending in November, while small-business income accelerated in October and November, during the height of the credit crisis. In fact, after subtracting income taxes, rent, mortgages, car leases and loans, debt service on credit cards and property taxes, incomes rose 3.9% faster than inflation in the year through September.

[Obama] knows he’s in trouble after his “win” over the Clinton Tag-Team in South Carolina, where Bill hit on the race issue like a Hooters girl at a NASCAR party. Bill pointedly (and shamelessly) remarked that “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in ‘84 and‘88.”

Obama is just lucky Al Sharpton never won any delegates there, or Bubba would have thrown them in, too.

The Clinton strategy to turn Obama from “the inspiring candidate who happens to be black” into “the black candidate” was cynical and reprehensible. But it was also smart. Obama won big in South Carolina, but his support from white voters was down 10 percent from Nevada.

The Clintons’ Southern Strategy is to turn Barack Obama into Jesse Jackson. The Kennedy response is to restore Obama’s original role as the next JFK.