Clinton v. Obama in General Election Matchups (MAPS included)

Several months ago I wrote a diary re. comparing general election matchups between Hillary and Obama and the top Republicans –

http://www.dailykos.com/...

At that time Hillary was arguably performing better than Obama when matched against the leading Republicans in general election polling.  Several polls have come out recently and it is interesting to note that currently Obama seems to be performing better than Hillary in these polls.  As in my November diary, I have compiled several maps via which we can more clearly see the numbers from the recent polls - please scroll below.  (I apologize as I have already deleted the maps from the November diary; but you can still read the analysis.)

I have been a Hillary supporter for about a year now and have written many diaries in support of her.  In a vast majority of them, I argued that she would be the stronger general election candidate precisely because of numbers from polls such as these.  So I must now admit that these recent numbers certainly do not look as good for Hillary and that they do indeed look quite good for Obama.  Just like with the November numbers, these provide a snapshot of where the race is today.  We are still many months away from the general and anything can still happen.  Nevertheless, I must admit that the Obama numbers are impressive.  As I have said in several of my diaries, I am a Democrat first and a Hillary supporter second.  I am therefore throwing this information out there for us to digest; I would have obviously done the same if the numbers continued to show Hillary as the stronger general election candidate.  

As with my November diary on this subject, I have tried to make this analysis as objective as possible.  I included each and every state poll I found from the month of February – using the latest poll available.  I also wanted to include earlier polls – from January – as long as that state had already held its primary; however, only one state fell in that category - Iowa, which I am including here.

I am providing five self-explanatory maps showing how Obama and Hillary perform against McCain, a map showing how Obama and Hillary compare to each other in this respect, and maps showing how theoretical elections matching Obama v. McCain and Hillary v. McCain would play out "if the election were held today" based on a combination of these poll numbers and using actual results from 2004 as "supplemental" information.

The number of polls used here is small, but they are nevertheless a somewhat representative sample of polling from different regions of the country.  The polls come from three separate pollsters – each with a relatively good reputation.  An additional plus here, is that almost all of the states polled here could be considered as "swing" states, and it seems that at least a good majority of all swing states are represented here.  I will not devote the remainder of this diary to analysis of the numbers – simply because I feel the numbers and the maps here speak for themselves:

Polling used:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/ - Colorado, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania
http://www.surveyusa.com/... - Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Washington
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/... - Florida, Ohio