Some people in New Hampshire seem to be very fickle.  As I noted in an earlier post, Obama had suffered a 23-point swing against him over a two month period, and now he has enjoyed a fifteen-point swing in his favour as many McCain backers have swung around to back Obama again.  Rasmussen has tried to account for this volatility by focusing on the margin of error, but none of the other states they are tracking has seen this kind of rollercoaster action.  So it may be that New Hampshire independents are actually moving back and forth in their preferences with great frequency.

Meanwhile, in more sobering news for Obamaites from the “Casey belt,” Obama leads McCain in Pennsylvania by two, while Clinton trounces McCain by eleven.  The 23% of Democrats who back McCain and the mere 63% of Democrats who support Obama would seem to account for a lot of that difference.  His lead among Pennsylvania independents is also slightly smaller than Clinton’s, and his advantage with Republicans is negligible.  Obama’s larger problem is that this is being replicated nationally.  From the Rasmussen tracking poll article yesterday:

McCain’s edge can be traced directly to the fact that just 66% of Democrats say they will vote for Obama at this time. Twenty-three percent (23%) of all Democrats say that if the election were held today, they’d vote for McCain [bold mine-DL]. Another 11% would opt for “some other candidate” or remain undecided. McCain, who wrapped up the GOP nomination more than two months ago, attracts 79% of Republican votes and holds a modest five point advantage among unaffiliated voters.

This 23% of Democrats in Pennsylvania who back McCain probably make up a large part of the 25% of Democrats who think Obama should drop out of the race.  Are these just Clintonite dead-enders?  Maybe, but this percentage of Democrats who are resisting Obama’s candidacy has been pretty constant throughout the contest.  Obviously, if McCain gets anything like 20-25% of Democrats in November it is very difficult to see how Obama wins.