McCain is currently benefiting from not being in the race. Both Obama and Clinton are being attacked and every comment and action analyzed to death, while McCain is not.

Exactly right. Alot of independents that would lean Democratic due to unrest regarding the war/economy are resorting to the default answer of McCain when faced with the nonstop intra-Dem bickering and media-fueled scandal du jour. As soon as a nominee becomes clear, the bounce for whichever Dem will be significant. These early polls mean little to nothing.

Under the circumstances that McCain is even close to either Obama or Clinton tells you how weak both candidates are. A strong Democratic candidate should be running away with this race.

McCain is currently benefiting from not being in the race. Both Obama and Clinton are being attacked and every comment and action analyzed to death, while McCain is not.

Everyone thought it would be hard for McCain to "stay relevant" during this period, but it seems more like he's benefiting from the Thompson effect ("We like you better when you're not running"). If McCain isn't beating either Dem at this point, things won't be looking good for him once people start talking about his every comment and action.

If there has been a nine point swing in three weeks, the most obvious conclusion is that 1) there’s something wrong with the polling method or 2) the thing being measured is in such flux as to be not worth measuring at this point.

And then there's always Rush's "Operation Chaos" which can't be totally discounted here.

Under the circumstances that McCain is even close to either Obama or Clinton tells you how weak both candidates are. A strong Democratic candidate should be running away with this race.

I wonder how much of McCain's closeness is an artifact of the lack of a single Democratic candidate to confront him at this time.

This shows McCain beating Obama 295 EV to 243EV. Compared to 2004, the switches would seem to be in the realm of the possible. Colorado and Iowa flip to the dems, NH and PA flip to the GOP.

The same methodology shows McCain losing to Hillary by a similar margin, 244 EV for McCain and 294 for Hillary. It has the dems picking up Florida, Ohio, Missouri and West Virginia while the GOP picks up NH and Michigan.

So as expected, the race looks very different based on who is running. The big difference can also be seen in the democratic primary. Obama would let the GOP flip PA and hold on to Ohio. This makes a certain level of sense given Obama's trouble getting votes with anyone who actually works for a living. Hillary would hold PA and flip Ohio and Florida. I'm not sure that Hillary would take Florida, but it is more in line with the national 'mood'.