I’m trying to avoid undue optimism, but I’m thinking the 6-8 point spread for Clinton that most polls are predicting is a little high. Looking at this graph from Pollster.com, I think the gap between Clinton and Obama will be five points or less :

The things on this graph that strike me are that (a) Clinton’s support seems to have a ceiling around 50% and (b) there’s still a pretty big chunk of voters who are undecided. Considering the rule of thumb that undecideds tend to break against an incumbent, I think Clinton’s name recognition and her lack of significant momentum in the polls seems to indicate that the 8% voters who haven’t made a choice might break for Obama. I don’t think it’ll be enough for Obama to win it, but I do think it’ll be a big enough improvement for him to claim a moral victory, despite claims over at FiveThirtyEight :

Now, I’ll tell you what is spin — the argument you’ll hear from some Obama surrogates that they won a moral victory because they were once 20 points behind in the polls. While this fact has the virtue of being true, its application has been rather specious, as it relies on a comparison between actual voting results and pre-election polling several weeks out from the election. Yes, Obama was once down 20 points in Pennsylvania — but the same was also true in Ohio, Texas, Connecticut, and a host of other states. And in each of those states, Obama’s standing improved substantially in the run-up to the election, sometimes enough to give him the victory and sometimes not. However, Obama was never really in danger of losing Pennsylvania by 20 points, given the presence of an active campaign. The state isn’t wonderful for him demographically — but it’s a -8, not a -20. On the other hand, this argument has its place as a counter to the even more facile argument that “Obama is not a good closer”. If Obama couldn’t close, he would have lost Texas and Ohio and Connecticut and New Hampshire by 20 points apiece — and Clinton would have wrapped up the nomination long ago.

Taking this argument at face value and looking at it from the other side, I still think Clinton’s victories in the “states that matter” are a serious problem. Sure, she won California, Texas, Ohio, and New York, but her victories in those states almost have a “saved by the bell” quality to them and the trendlines imply that Obama could continue to close the gap with her and perhaps even win if the election were held later. In the big states that Clinton won, the polls show that she either bled support between the beginning of the campaign until election day or barely clung to her lead. It’s enough to make you worry about what those “Clinton vs. McCain” matchups really mean six months before the general election.

UPDATE : Damn.