Hillary on Top

Gallup shows Hillary leading by a point nationally for the first time in a month, a sign of some impact on democrats from the 'bitter' uproar. Rasmussen has Barack hanging on to a two point lead.

More significant is the matter of negatives. Hillary's been drawing much media attention over recent days for the impact on her unfavorable ratings caused by chasing Barack on his San Francisco remarks. But the Rasmussen numbers suggest that her strategy has been working - while her bad numbers have shot up, so have Barack's, and they're viewed with pretty similar levels of disdain.

Obama’s ratings are 47% favorable and 51% unfavorable. For Clinton, those numbers are 45% favorable, 53% unfavorable (see recent daily favorable ratings).

Knocking Barack off his cloud has been a tough one, but the Clintons have finally done it. Compare the way the two democrats are viewed by the country to the perception of John McCain:

McCain is viewed favorably by 56% and unfavorably by 40%.

While McCain benefits from his relative anonymity - he's really not part of the campaign right now - and these numbers are obviously fluid, this does show that the Clintons aren't as dumb as they look to some.

Remember, Hillary's goal is that Barack Obama not become president. When viewed through this lense, everything she's doing makes good sense.