There is a lot of talk about the various swing groups--suburban white women, Appalachian white people, Jewish white people, working class white people, Southwest brown people etc. I actually expect most of those cats to rally to Obama's side. But just like in the primary, one of the most decisive demographic group in this election will be black folks down South--particularly black people in Georgia, North Carolina and maybe Florida. At this moment, Obama is running neck and neck with McCain in Georgia and within four points in North Carolina.
I don't think that polls this early don't mean much, except this--all this talk from the primaries about what Obama can and can't do is pretty much out the window. The goes for (as I've called) the varying tribes of white people, and for the varying tribes of us. I think an Obama win, while winning some of the states that Dems have traditionally lost would say so much about where we are, racially, in this country. As for the "us," the Southern Tribes really need to come through on this one. With significant numbers, we may not win, but we can McCain sweat bullets. Should they lose North Carolina and Georgia, the math gets really tough. Some of you walked through night-sticks and police dogs for a chance to alter the world. We're not asking you to do that again. Just walk into the voting booth. Do that and some things--not everything--will change.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
The Southern Tribes? Relax - we got this one locked (put that amongst the phrases I never thought I would write, circa 2008). This election will be a landslide victory for Barack Obama and the Democratc Party - http://allpanthersareblack.blogspot.com/2008/06/states-obama-will-win-this-november.html.
Now, I know the prediction business is fraught with peril and the wayside is littered with the bodies or self-professed prophets, but here me out, there is a very simple formula for this upcoming election:
BV + LV + BB = 400
where BV equals black vote, LV equals Latino vote and BB equals Bob Barr, the candidate of the Libertarian Party.
Campaign funding at this point tells us that John McCain has barely 50% of the cash on hand that Barack Obama has, which means that he will be hard pressed to match the campaign cadence (commercials, travel, staff) set by Obama. Plus - McCain has to raise money the old fashion way: by spending time with people to collect their checks. Obama collects his money online; time spent raising money is time away from campaigning.
McCain has both a money deficit and a time deficit to Obama.
Obama already has a general election ad up in states that voted for Bush in 2004 - from the "solid south" of GA, NC and VA to the plains states of the Dakotas and Montana to the Southwestern states of CO, NV and NM. Not only is Obama on television in these formerly "red" states, but he has campaign staff there - both paid and volunteer - mostly as a result of the extended contest with Clinton. This campaign staff is mounting a voter registration drive the likes of which this nation has rarely seen and historians will probably compare to the Civil RIghts Era when it is all over. From just where I live in Miami, there are voter registration events every week, concentrated in heavily black neighborhoods like Overtown and Liberty City - but also in Coconut Grove and Miami Springs.
Which is the crossover from mobilizing the black vote to mobilizing the Latino vote. Although Obama did not campaign in Florida, he stands a good chance of winning this state. Current polls show his support among the Latino community on an upswing and their is no indication that McCain will do even remotely close to as well as Bush did with this community. That is what opens up the states of the Southwest.
Finally, you throw Bob Barr onto the ballot and he will siphon Libertarian/Republican votes from McCain all across the South - but especially in GA.
The only real question remaining to be answered by this election, is will the Republican Party still be a national party in its wake or will the Libertarian Party finally splinter the economic conservatives and foreign policy conservatives, away from the neoconservatives and the religious conservatives? If that happens, look for the religious conservatives to push for a complete takeover of the Republican Party and perhaps the resurgence of Jeb Bush . . . ?
Okay - that last statement was pure conjecture - but I would not put a dime on John McCain to win more than 200 electoral college votes.