Sen. John McCain, the all-but-nominated Republican candidate for president, caused a minor stir last week when he challenged Sen. Barack Obama on the latter’s claim that he would send U.S. troops back into Iraq, “if al-Qaeda is forming a base� there. McCain mockingly informed Obama that al-Qaeda was in Iraq and attempting to do just that. “I have some news. Al-Qaeda is in Iraq. It’s called ‘al-Qaeda in Iraq.’� Obama responded by claiming that al-Qaeda was not in Iraq until President Bush invaded. The media immediately busied itself with scoring the exchange, trying to determine who won on points. But for the McCain campaign, that wasn’t really the point of the exercise. Whoever won, the dust-up was good for a couple of news cycles worth of free media coverage for the candidate.

Many Republicans are hoping that the Democratic primary campaign goes well beyond tomorrow’s mini-Super Tuesday primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island. The longer the two leading Democrats focus their fire on each other, the theory goes, the better for McCain. Democrats will be spending their money and time talking not about McCain, but about each other. In so doing, they will be exposing lines of attack that McCain may be able to pick up on for the general election. If Sen. Hillary Clinton is able to do well enough on Tuesday, the Democratic race will certainly continue through the end of April, and may go all the way until the convention in late August. That would be at least two months less time that McCain’s eventual opponent would have to sharpen his or her attacks against him.

But with attacks comes attention, as the McCain-Obama Iraq exchange demonstrates. By virtue of the fact that he has the nomination wrapped up, the McCain campaign’s media time has gone down sharply. Last week’s jab at Obama generated the only significant time McCain’s campaign has had in the media spotlight in the two weeks since the New York Times story that purported to detail an “inappropriate� relationship between McCain and a female lobbyist. Furthermore, that story was the only real focus on McCain in the mainstream media in the week since his Potomac primary victories of February 12th. McCain strongly denied the allegation, and enjoyed several days of sympathetic press coverage, as the shallowness of the Times’ allegations was revealed. Soon, however, the press was back to focusing on the Democratic race; and the McCain campaign found itself out of America’s living rooms.

An extended Democratic primary could be a problem for the McCain campaign, as it struggles to find a way into the news. If Clinton extends the campaign on Tuesday, McCain may need to begin to engage in the Democratic primary in order to find a way through the clutter. If he does, it will help him unite conservatives and Republicans behind his campaign. As much as anything else, Republicans want their candidate to be a fighter. The al-Qaeda controversy and the Times story benefited McCain because they showed him to be fighting against the liberal establishment. They also exposed him to press coverage that he otherwise would not have received. That is crucial to a campaign that has been struggling with financial decisions, and whose foil in the Republican race, Gov. Mike Huckabee, receives even less media attention.

Another way that McCain may attempt to focus attention on his campaign while highlighting differences between himself and the two Democrats vying to be his opponent is through the Senate. McCain could sit down with the Republican leadership in the Senate and craft a strategy to put Clinton and Obama on the spot. By introducing legislation of his own and signing on to his Republican colleagues’ good ideas, McCain can appeal to his party’s base as well as expose Clinton’s and Obama’s votes to greater scrutiny. If the Democrats avoid difficult votes on McCain’s issues of choice, that too could be ammunition for him. All of this would help solidify McCain’s position within his own party, and force the Democrats to answer to him, rather than the other way around. Just as important, the inevitable rhetorical battle to follow would garner invaluable media attention for McCain, as the Democrats continue to talk about each other.

The nominating conventions are still just under six months away. That is more than an eternity in politics. The entire dynamic of the race could have changed many times by late August, when the Democrats gather in Denver. If Sen. Clinton does reasonably well on Tuesday, there is no guarantee that the Democrats will have a nominee until then. McCain will have long since clinched the Republican nomination, and so will constitute less of a story compared to the epic primary battle on the Democratic side. If he wants to prevent the election from being effectively decided by the Democratic primary process in the minds of the voters, McCain must take advantage of every opportunity to get media coverage. Whether that means continuing to jab at Clinton and Obama, or coming out with specific policy proposals for the media and Democrats to comment on, he will need to get started soon. Otherwise, his campaign risks a long six months of virtual banishment from the front pages.

………………………………………………..

Mark Impomeni is a contributing editor at RedState and covers the White House for AOL’s new political blog, The Political Machine. He writes a column with a conservative’s take on the state of the 2008 presidential race for Political-Buzz.com.