I'd love to see the crosstabs for this Pennsylvania poll, but, just looking at the top-line numbers, it strikes me as pretty good news for Obama. It's not so much that he's down three points in a hypothetical match-up with McCain, which is better than Hillary's six-point deficit but still not great. And it's certainly not that he's down 18 points to Hillary in the upcoming primary, which isn't going to impress anybody. It's the combination of the two: A poll showing that Obama can get blown out in the Pennsylvania primary and still hold his own there against McCain suggests working-class white Democrats simply prefer Hillary, not that they find something inherently objectionable about Obama, whom they're apparently happy to support in the general.
It's the kind of thing that would ease my mind if I were a superdelegate.
This, on the other hand, would not.
--Noam Scheiber