New polls from North Carolina and Florida show Barack Obama edging slightly ahead of John McCain.

Hey, if Florida -- the least Southern of the Southern states -- goes for Obama, that’s it for McCain. But I still think Virginia is the most likely Southern state to flip. And if North Carolina goes to Obama -- and the Obama camp remains very excited and quietly confident about that proposition -- that almost surely means Virginia does, too.

Meanwhile, I wanted to recommend to readers the fine Salon piece by Dan Hoyle about Obama’s Hispanic-dependent Southwest strategy and his prospects for winning Nevada. If Obama wins there he probably holds Colorado and New Mexico, which he’ll need to do if those Southern states do not turn blue.