Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader reads on the AP news wire that in a new poll Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has “erased” the lead once enjoyed by Senator Barack Obama (D-Heaven). According to the article:

Republican Sen. John McCain has erased Sen. Barack Obama’s 10-point advantage in a head-to-head matchup, leaving him essentially tied with both Democratic candidates in an Associated Press-Ipsos national poll released Thursday.

The survey showed the extended Democratic primary campaign creating divisions among supporters of Obama and rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and suggests a tight race for the presidency in November no matter which Democrat becomes the nominee.

McCain is benefiting from a bounce since he clinched the GOP nomination a month ago. The four-term Arizona senator has moved up in matchups with each of the Democratic candidates, particularly Obama.

An AP-Ipsos poll taken in late February had Obama leading McCain 51-41 percent. The current survey, conducted April 7-9, had them at 45 percent each. McCain leads Obama among men, whites, Southerners, married women and independents.

Clinton led McCain, 48-43 percent, in February. The latest survey showed the New York senator with 48 percent support to McCain’s 45 percent. Factoring in the poll’s margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, Clinton and McCain are statistically tied.

The last month has been challenging for Obama. The Illinois senator suffered high-profile losses in Texas and Ohio that encouraged Clinton, who pushed on even harder against him. Obama’s campaign also suffered a blow with scrutiny of incendiary sermons delivered by his longtime pastor. The candidate responded by delivering perhaps the biggest speech of his campaign to call for racial understanding.

Your Maximum Leader, as you can well imagine, doesn’t put any creedence in this poll right now. We don’t know if these people are likely voters, registered voters, slobs, the clinically insane, or deviants. We really don’t know much from this information. And frankly, the polls are constantly changing. The fact that Obama and Clinton are going at each other more than they are going after John McCain surely figures into this.

Your Maximum Leader, as longtime readers know, is sure that one day the rainbows, butterflies, puppies and scented flowers that spring up out of the footsteps of Barack Obama will cease to be. And that crushing day will be one where you will be able to hear your Maximum Leader shouting for joy across this great land of ours (and Canada - who’s lookin’ out for ya Skippy?)

But that day is not today…

Your Maximum Leader actually has to admit that he has a lot of respect… Well no… Not respect… Your Maximum Leader is impressed with Hillary’s moxie in (essentially) giving the middle finger to all of those insufferable Obama supporters everywhere who just wish a great dark hole would open in the earth and swallow her whole. Every day (if one watches the news) the chorus of people demanding that Hillary drop out of the race (and the tenor of reporting she receives) makes you wonder just how much many in the Democratic elite must really dislike her.

Anyhoo…

The plot to the Democrats nomination continues to thicken like arrowroot in gravy. Your Maximum Leader keeps watching.

Carry on.