Barack Obama began pivoting into general election mode this week, even as Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to argue that she would offer a better matchup with John McCain in November. Recent polling, however, turns up little evidence that Clinton would outperform Obama in the general election, and in fact finds Democratic insiders anxious about the harm her nomination could cause the party.

According to Gallup's daily tracking numbers, Obama and Clinton both fare about equally well right now against McCain in head-to-head matchups, with Obama leading the Arizona senator 46 percent to 45 percent and Clinton leading 47 percent to 45 percent (both within the poll's margin of error). What's more, National Journal's survey of Democratic political insiders finds considerable consensus that the party would suffer for failing to nominate Obama. When asked which would hurt the Democrats more -- not nominating either Obama or Clinton -- 72 percent agreed that there would be more fallout from passing over Obama.

But should Obama seal the nomination, this year's presidential election could be more of a nostalgia trip than many expect. According to Gallup's analysis of its daily tracking figures from last week, demographic breakdowns of an Obama-McCain contest echo the divisions of the 2004 campaign between President Bush and John Kerry. Comparing data from 4,000 daily interviews conducted during the first week of May with exit polling data from the 2004 election, Gallup found that "the basic underlying structure of the general-election campaign this year does not appear to be markedly different from that of the 2004 election."

Clinton has made much of Obama's supposed weakness among white voters, and he currently trails McCain by 16 points among this group. Kerry lost whites to Bush by 17 points. Obama makes up some ground with black voters, however, as he currently leads McCain 91 percent to 5 percent among this group, topping Kerry's 88 percent to 11 percent performance in 2004. And while women have heavily favored Clinton over Obama in the Democratic primary race, an Obama-McCain race sees the same gender gap as in the Kerry-Bush contest. Kerry defeated Bush among women, 51 percent to 48 percent, while Bush defeated Kerry among men, 55 percent to 44 percent. Similarly, 47 percent of women said they would choose Obama in November, versus 43 percent for McCain, while McCain holds the advantage among men, 49 percent to 44 percent.

But the apparent tightness of the contest has some Republican insiders worried, as they expected McCain to gain more of an advantage from the drawn-out and increasingly bitter Democratic race. When National Journal asked how satisfied they were with the early phases of McCain's general election run, a 40-percent plurality reported being only "somewhat satisfied." While many acknowledged that McCain has done a decent job securing the conservative base, one said that he has not taken the next step of "articulat[ing] a message that will play in a year when voters are demanding change." Another described the campaign as "running at 50 percent," while a less-satisfied expert fretted, "Haven't a clue what he would do as president.... This is Bob Dole '96 all over again."

Economy Puts Environment On Back Burner

The environment has taken a back seat to the struggling economy for many Americans, a new Moore Information (R) poll [PDF] finds. When asked to choose between jobs and the environment -- a choice some might consider a false dichotomy -- just over half of those surveyed said they were more concerned with protecting jobs than with protecting the environment. These numbers have reversed since last year, when just under 50 percent indicated the environment was worth protecting more than jobs and 40 percent said the opposite.

Despite that survey's results, a recent Pew Research poll [PDF] indicates that Americans consider global climate change a serious problem, with almost three-quarters of respondents agreeing that the earth is warming. Within that percentage, however, there's no clear consensus on what causes global warming: almost half of all respondents said human activity, while 18 percent attributed it to the planet's natural patterns and another 6 percent admitted they didn't know.

The gap between Democrats and Republicans on this issue continues to widen, according to Pew's analysis. The percentage of Republicans who said the planet is warming decreased a whopping 13 percent since January 2007, from 62 percent to 49 percent. Most Democrats and independents, on the other hand, still say the planet is warming, with 84 percent of Democrats and three-quarters of independents indicating as much. The Moore poll found a similar division: Almost two-thirds of Republicans surveyed said protecting jobs is more important than protecting the environment -- substantially higher than among Democrats and independents.

Do Fence Me In

With news of the economy dominating presidential politics right now, the issue of illegal immigration has largely dropped from the national spotlight even as work continues on a border fence between the U.S. and Mexico. Should the topic re-emerge, however, candidates will find little guidance by looking to the polls; a new survey [PDF] from AP/Ipsos Public Affairs found the public split 49 percent to 48 percent on whether they favor or oppose the project.

Nearly a third of respondents indicated that they "strongly favor" the fence, yet most were far less confident in its actual deterrent effect. Only 10 percent said such a barrier would be very effective at reducing the flow of illegal immigration, compared with 29 percent who predicted it would have no impact. Despite their misgivings, people's support for the effort has increased notably since the same poll was conducted two years ago, when two-thirds said they had no or little confidence in the fence.