What is Narrow?

To the L.A. Times it depends. [Link]

The L.A. Times reports that, according to a new poll, Californians slimly reject the idea of John McCain as their presidential candidate. By a small margin, it appears, Californians would vote for Barack Obama — but only by a bit! The poll reveals such a narrow margin of victory, it appears that Obama can’t even muster a bare majority against McCain!

Obama would beat McCain by only 7 points. This is far less than half the 19-point gap by which Californians would approve an amendment banning gay marriage — a finding that caused the paper to repeatedly trumpet how narrowly and slimly (we Californians are slim!) the anti-gay marriage argument is winning with voters.

And indeed, the margin of an Obama victory, as measured by this poll, is slimmer than the margin of victory enjoyed by any Democrat candidate since 1988. Including John Kerry and Al Gore. [UPDATE: And the margin is actually within the poll’s margin of error.]