Poll: If election were held today, Obama would beat McCain in Pa.

After Barack Obama lost the Pennsylvania Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton just eight short weeks ago, the conventional wisdom was that the Illinois senator would have a tough time here in the fall, and that he was in trouble with white voters.

So far, the conventional wisdom isn't panning out.

The first major poll since Obama clinched the nomination, pitting him against the GOP's John McCain in Pennsylvania, shows that the Democrat would carry the state by a solid margin if the election were held today - with a small plurality of whites.

The Quinnipiac College poll of Pennsylvania hands Obama a 52-40 percent lead over the Arizona Republican in the Keystone State, which carries a prize of 21 electoral votes. The survey of 1,511 likely voters on June 9-16 has an error margin of plus or minus 2.5 percent

Of course, the election isn't today. Just ask "President Michael Dukakis," who held a nationwide lead over George H.W. Bush in early June 1988 of 14 percentage points before losing by a wide margin.

Still, the Quinnipiac poll seems to dispel for now some of the concerns that Obama cannot do well with white voters in Pennsylvania and with women, who pundits said might drift to McCain in their disappointment over Clinton's defeat.

Obama is demolishing McCain among Pennsylvania women in the survey - 57percent to 34 percent - and holds the edge among white voters, 47 percent to 44 percent. His lead among black voters here is an astounding 98-1 percent.

Another pollster, political scientist G. Terry Madonna of Franklin & Marshall College, said that he still thinks McCain will make the race here a lot closer between now and November.

Madonna said McCain will have a tough time making his case about the sluggish economy, but expects the former Vietnam POW to run on "values, character, attitude and questions of leadership. He has to define Obama as someone out-of-touch with American values."

For now, Obama may be enjoying a bump from the good press he received for capturing the nomination, a historic first for an African-American. Quinnipiac also polled in Florida and Ohio and showed the Democrat winning those states, too, by smaller margins. *