This morning, the Politico reports on growing concern among Dems who are working to stop what they see as a coming trainwreck:

Democrats are increasingly nervous about their party's protracted nomination fight, and some prominent figures are publicly warning that the party needs to act fast to avoid disaster.

Chief among these voices is Phil Bredesen, the two-term governor of Tennessee who is uncommitted to either Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) or Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

In an interview this week with Politico, Bredesen said flatly that if the contentious slog continues until the Democrats' late-August convention in Denver, the party would have a vastly diminished chance of recapturing the White House.

"You're going to spend this whole summer--and lots of money and time and effort--trying to convince people that whoever isn't eventually nominated, isn't electable...That's a heck of a hole to climb out of come the first of September."

Meanwhile, according to a recent Gallup poll, solid percentages of Democrats "would vote for John McCain next November if he is matched against the candidate they do not support for the Democratic nomination." This particularly rings true for Clinton loyalists, "more than a quarter of whom currently say they would vote for McCain if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee."

Whether this is hyperbole, however, remains to be seen. On the other side of the aisle, many a conservative purist has been up in arms about McCain's nomination. It's a pretty safe bet, however, that most of them will pull the lever for him--albeit grudgingly--in November.

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