Presumably, when Obama was at 41% in Rasmussen tracking poll, this was also deeply meaningful.  Or maybe not, since things have now swung back the other way.  The general election is likely to be very close, and I think we can expect seesawing national polls for the next several months.  If Obama loses ground over the summer, it does not mean that he is doomed, and if McCan takes the lead it is not at all certain that he can actually win.  What is certain is that it should never have been this close.  So it is interesting to see how much importance Obama boosters are putting on the risibly small “bump” that Obama has received from effectively securing the nomination.  They must be a little concerned that their candidate keeps running behind the generic Democratic ballot (at least when not counting leaners) and cannot seem to expand beyond the boundaries of the old Gore-Kerry coalitions despite incredibly favourable circumstances.

Update: John Cole questions my claim about Obama boosters, so I should provide some links that show the kind of thing I mean.  Yes, this post was mostly a response to Sullivan and to some of my more Obamaniac commenters, and so I should have specified that I was really referring in this case to one particular Obama booster.  So let’s leave aside the business about Obama boosters.  In any case, isn’t it surprising (and, from an anti-GOP perspective, depressing) that in this most Democratic of years the Democratic nominee has reached 50% for just the first time in national polls against the representative of a deeply loathed party?