THE NOTE: Mac Week

Jan. 11, 2008 -- It hasn't been fun to be a frontrunner in this year's spate of presidential debates. (Three GOP forums in six days? And we thought "CSI" could use some new plotlines.)

But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., looking strong in South Carolina, was enjoying himself Thursday night in Myrtle Beach -- and the reason for his smile is one big factor that suggests he could (unlike all of those around him) keep that title for good.

The crosscurrents and mini-battles in this jam-packed period in the cycle left McCain largely unscathed. Former senator Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., shrugged off any signs of slumber and went on the attack -- against former governor Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., his biggest threat in South Carolina. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, R-N.Y., apparently knows that he needs to take down McCain (if not in Florida, then before then) but delivered only glancing blows.

The only candidate who sought to engage McCain was former governor Mitt Romney, R-Mass., who needs Michigan to stay in the race. But Romney suffered the worst fate of all on stage: No longer soaring above the GOP field, he got the Ron Paul treatment -- he was ignored. Even when the topic turned to immigration -- McCain's softest spot -- the Arizona senator seemed in control of his message; he'd heard all of Romney's lines before.

"Largely untouched after 90 minutes, John McCain left the stage here Thursday night with the same designation he had upon arrival: frontrunner," Politico's Jonathan Martin writes. "No candidate not named 'Mitt Romney' aggressively went after the ascendant McCain, who leads now in polls taken in both Michigan and South Carolina. And with Romney apparently not airing negative ads in Michigan, it appears that McCain, whose vulnerabilities in a GOP primary are well documented, now could go into the next two pivotal primary states largely untouched by his intra-party rivals." http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/7838.html

Maybe it was weariness -- the candidates did look debated out. Maybe it was friendliness -- three of his rival candidates would almost certainly be supporting McCain if they weren't running themselves. More likely, it was the candidates being realistic -- taking down McCain won't get them anywhere, not with the jumble of primaries leaving each of them with different (and increasingly difficult) paths to the nomination.

"Two things worked in McCain's favor: the content of the questions asked by the Fox News Channel moderators and the unwillingness of anyone other than former governor Mitt Romney (Mass.) to take a shot at McCain," Washingtonpost.com's Chris Cillizza writes. "Even the five minutes (or so) spent discussing illegal immigration -- a weak spot for McCain -- ended as well as possible for the Arizona senator."

And this intriguing line, from Jim Carlton of The Wall Street Journal: "[Arnold] Schwarzenegger could come out soon in support of Mr. McCain, says a person familiar with the governor's thinking."

On the Democratic side, the post-New Hampshire hangover was interrupted by an endorsement coup: Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was the surprise guest at a rally for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in Charleston, S.C.

And a bigger South Carolina endorsement could be on deck for Obama: Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., perhaps the biggest powerbroker in his state's Democratic Party, and certainly the state's most politically influential African-American voice.

Clyburn is considering jumping off the fence and into Obama's camp, in the wake of "recent remarks by the Clintons that he saw as distorting civil rights history," Carl Hulse reports in The New York Times. "We have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics," Clyburn said of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's recent comments on Martin Luther King, Jr.

And this, regarding former President Clinton's New Hampshire-eve comments: "To call that dream a fairy tale, which Bill Clinton seemed to be doing, could very well be insulting to some of us."

As for Kerry, keeping in mind the peculiarly Democratic desire to eat the party's former nominees, this was an endorsement that Obama's chief rivals wanted. Kerry brings Obama "his fat fund-raising Rolodex and foreign policy gravitas," Marcella Bombardieri writes in The Boston Globe.

Said Kerry: "When we choose a president, we are electing judgment and character, not years on this earth."

Former senator John Edwards, D-N.C., never had a shot at the endorsement (if he even wanted it). And ABC's Jake Tapper reports that Edwards found out about the decision through the media, not from Kerry himself, in a replay of Al Gore's decision to neglect to tell Joe Lieberman he was going with Howard Dean four years ago. "A source close to Kerry says he had tried to reach Edwards this morning before boarding a flight from Washington, DC, to South Carolina, but 'they didn't connect,' " Tapper writes.

Neither Kerry nor Obama mentioned Clinton in Charleston on Thursday, but Kerry gladly went there in a phone interview with Nevada political guru Jon Ralston. Why not support Clinton? "The times demand different things," Kerry said. "He has been a legislator longer than Hillary Clinton. . . . Health care didn't pass in 1994 if I recall." (He recalls correctly.)

The establishment endorsements may not be done yet: Obama on Thursday also announced the support of Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., and Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., and "aides said about a half-dozen Democrats were likely to lend support to the Obama campaign," Jeff Zeleny writes in The New York Times. "Governors, members of Congress and other senators also are being heavily courted by Mr. Obama." Said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.: "There have been some conversations, I can say that."