SURPRISE -- LOOK WHO THE ELITIST CANDIDATE IS

A new Reuters/Zogby poll shows Obama leading McCain overall by 5 (47%-42%). It also includes some master-narrative-busting stats:

Obama leads among all household income groups except those living in households with incomes above $100,000 per year. Interestingly, he also leads among those who said they shop at Wal-Mart at least once a week. This is a demographic group that typically skews politically conservative.

But ... but ... the Obamas were Ivy Leaguers! And they have some money now! People who shop at Wal-Mart will only vote for a presidential candidate who's a poor high school dropout -- right?

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Oh, and Quinnipiac says Obama's winning two big beer-and-a-shot states -- Pennsylvania by 12 (52%-40%) and Ohio by 6 (48%-42%). Hey, I thought that was impossible unless he learned how to bowl!

Oh, and Florida, too (47%-43%).

A curious bit of information from the Quinnipiac poll: In each of the three states, Obama's getting a double-digit percentage of 2004 Bush voters (13% in Florida and Ohio, 19% in Pennsylvania). That's good, right? But McCain gets an even larger percentage of Clinton primary voters. Wait, that's bad! Obama's losing his base!

But he can't be losing his base -- he's doing better in each state than Kerry did in 2004. (Kerry lost Florida and Ohio, and won Pennsylvania by only 2.) That means -- assuming the poll respondents are telling the truth -- that a fair number of those Hillary voters voted for Bush in 2004, or didn't vote at all. The math simply doesn't work otherwise. If they were Bush voters or non-voters in 2004, McCain might well have won a good chunk of their votes this year against Clinton, even though they gave her their primary votes.

So, in three big swing states, a significant number of people who didn't vote Democratic in '04 voted for Clinton and now like McCain -- and a significant number of people who didn't vote Democratic in '04 now like Obama. And Obama's winning those states, which the Hillary-or-death crowd said he couldn't possibly win. Got it?