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The end is near. And so, as a result, is the beginning.

Barack Obama's emphatic victory in North Carolina, combined with his close finish in In-diana, propelled him to within sight of the finish line in his marathon race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama didn't transcend his candidacy's demographic limitations: Hillary Rodham Clinton still trounced him among noncollege and older white voters in both states.

But Obama demonstrated that his coalition of African-Americans, well-educated whites, young people, and independents has survived all of the controversies that have battered his campaign since March. And his coalition appears just large enough to ensure that he retains the advantage in the epic contest that has divided the Democratic Party almost exactly in half.

As the Democratic struggle winds down, the general election choice will begin to come into sharper focus. Obama quickly made that pivot during his victory speech on Tuesday night. "We can't afford to give John McCain the chance to serve out George Bush's third term," Obama declared. With that single sentence, Obama encapsulated what's certain to be the core Democratic argument against McCain, the senior senator from Arizona and the presumptive GOP nominee--that he represents the extension of a Bush presidency that has unambiguously lost the country's confidence.

History suggests that that's a strong card for the Democrats. In the 20th century, every time a retiring president was about as unpopular as Bush is now, his party lost the White House in the next election. Think of Woodrow Wilson in 1920, Harry Truman in 1952, or Lyndon Johnson in 1968.

Even in the 19th century, the White House changed parties when weakened presidents stepped down in 1844, 1852, 1860, 1884, and 1896. The exceptions came only in 1856 and 1876, when the parties of troubled Presidents Franklin Pierce and Ulysses S. Grant overcame their difficulties to maintain control.

Bush today is as unpopular as any of these embattled predecessors. Most Americans have said they disapprove of his performance in Gallup Polls since July 2005, the longest period of unbroken majority disapproval since Truman. In one April survey, Bush's disapproval rating hit 69 percent, the highest that Gallup has ever recorded. Amid such gale-force disillusionment with the Republican president, Democrats hold their widest advantage in party identification in years, and have double-digit leads when voters are asked which party should control Congress or the White House, polls show.

Louisiana Democrat Don Cazayoux's victory over Republican Woody Jenkins in a special election last Saturday to fill a vacant House seat demonstrated the risk that such numbers could pose for Republicans this fall. It's true that Jenkins, a former state legislator, was a flawed and shopworn candidate. But, ordinarily, Republicans could have held the district with a candidate who was embalmed. As recently as 2004, Bush won 59 percent of the vote there.

Jenkins's troubles might not have been relevant without Bush's: In private Republican polling, 58 percent of the district's voters disapproved of the president's performance. No single race is predictive, but the Democratic victories in Louisiana and in an earlier special election to fill a GOP-tilting seat in Illinois suggest that congressional Republicans haven't finished paying the price for Bush's fall.

At the moment, one Republican appears immune to this undertow: McCain. Almost all surveys show him running competitively against either Obama or Clinton. The reason is straightforward. Gallup results provided to National Journal show that nearly 30 percent of the voters who disapprove of Bush now prefer McCain over either Democrat. That's a remarkably high number. In 2000, exit polls found that only 9 percent of voters who disapproved of Bill Clinton's job performance backed Democratic nominee Al Gore. In 1988, only 11 percent of voters who disapproved of President Reagan's performance supported his vice president, George H.W. Bush.

The central question through November may be whether McCain can defend his hold on so many of the voters who are dissatisfied with Bush. McCain's greatest assets in that effort are his reputation for independence and the fact that much of the public perceives him to be stronger, more honest, and more experienced than either Democratic candidate. McCain's greatest vulnerability is his convergence with Bush on such critical policies as the Iraq war, tax cuts, and health care.

As a former Navy pilot, McCain is accustomed to flying alone. Obama's speech on Tuesday showed how hard Democrats will work to define Bush as McCain's co-pilot during the turbulent ride ahead.