I've been wondering about this myself:
Another problem for pollsters is a California peculiarity. A registered independent who shows up at a polling place Feb. 5 and asks for a Republican ballot will be told, sorry, but the Republican primary is for registered Republicans only. But the voter then may take a ballot in the more permissive Democratic election. How many will do this and then vote for Obama? The polls cannot foretell that.
I've heard through the grapevine that the Obama people believe that their surprise loss in NH was due to independents switching at the last minute from them to McCain. The morning of the election it looked like Obama had it in the bag, and there's no doubt that led many people to feel it was safe to move away from Obama and towards McCain. It's hard to tell from the polling whether or not this was true, but one piece of evidence - the number of people who made up their mind in the final 24 or 48 hours - suggests it very well might be.
In California, however, there will be no such temptation for independents. If they show up to vote in the primary, they will have only one choice: vote Democratic, or don't vote at all. Now I ask you: how many of those people do you think will break for Clinton, and how many more will go Obama's way? If the election is as close as I suspect it will be (some new evidence here validates my hunch), that could make all the difference. Because if Obama outright wins in Cali, it's over.
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