In California, it's Clinton and McCain (Clinton 47 Obama 31, McCain 20, Mitt 16)

[Wretched Excess]

In California, it's Clinton and McCain

New poll gives the New York senator a strong lead among Democrats and the Arizona senator a slim margin among GOP hopefuls.
By Cathleen Decker, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 15, 2008
Hillary Rodham Clinton holds a commanding lead over Barack Obama in California as the Democratic presidential contest heads toward the Feb. 5 primary, a new statewide poll has found. John McCain's resurgent campaign claimed a slim lead among Republicans, with a trio of candidates competing to challenge him.

The L.A. Times/CNN/Politico poll, conducted by Opinion Research Corp., showed that the race remains extremely fluid, even as voters in the state are casting mail-in ballots. Six in 10 Republican primary voters said they might change candidates in the next three weeks. Among Democrats, four in 10 said they could still change their minds.

As things stand now, Clinton leads Obama 47 to 31% among voters judged likely to cast ballots in California. A third candidate, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, was a distant third with 10%.

The poll provides the first public glimpse of the race in the nation's largest state since the initial round of contests in Iowa and New Hampshire began to winnow the field.

As she did in New Hampshire, where she eked out a win over Obama last week, Clinton held on to a sturdy margin among registered Democrats. But the New York senator also opened a strong lead over her colleague from Illinois among independent voters. Registered voters who have declined to state a party will be able to cast ballots in California's Democratic primary but not in the GOP contest.

Those planning to vote in the Democratic primary here, as in Iowa and New Hampshire, embraced the notion of "change" as more crucial than "experience" in deciding which candidate to support. Obama led among voters who said change was their top priority.

Clinton, who has touted her experience and equated a vote for Obama with risk, dominated among those who hewed to experience but remained the choice of almost a third of voters who said change was imperative. By wide margins, Democratic primary voters also said Clinton would be the candidate best equipped to battle the Republicans in the fall.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-me-poll15jan15,0,1056634.story?coll=la-home-center

I don't get it.  either the polls are worthless on the dem side this cycle, or the country has gone schizo-affective.

[DumbAss Tanker]

In the big picture, any Republican that wins the nomination on the weight of primary results in Californistan or the Northeast is dead meat in the general election, since they are Democatic satrapies and the resulting Electoral College count from them will be 'Zero' for the GOP in the general election.