I find myself wondering whether Obama's recent success in the early primary states is going to be short-lived. The paradigm up until this point has been that Obama would occasionally spike in the polls against Hillary (like during that irresponsible and naive negotiating strategy period), then the polls would return to showing a comfy HRC lead. But that phenomenon was always confined to the national polls. That Obama has been surging in New Hampshire and South Carolina--as well as Iowa--but moving comparatively little in the national polls tends to suggest that this isn't that phenomenon. Hillary really only has one week to react before the holidays begin in earnest, and it's not clear that mudslinging will work. I'd like to believe that the Hillary juggernaut has run aground, and she has undermined so many of the arguments for her candidacy, and the "I don't have any skeletons in my closet" argument is almost parodical.