Remember Florida and Ohio?

Wouldn't it be nice if Florida and Ohio weren't even close? Wouldn't it be nice if the Democratic nominee had a comfortable enough lead that the Republicans couldn't steal those states again?

Of course there's a long time between now and the November election, but as of right now, the strongest candidate against all of the Republicans in Florida and Ohio is not Barack Obama, and it's not Hillary Clinton.

It's John Edwards.

In a survey conducted by Public Policy Polling the evening after the Iowa caucus last week, Edwards leads all four Republican front-runners in Ohio and three out of the four in Florida. Obama beats the only fading candidates Giuliani and Romney, ties Huckabee, and loses to McCain in Ohio. In Florida, Edwards beats Huckabee, Romney and Giuliani, and is only behind McCain by a percentage point. Obama narrowly edges Giuliani (with little enough room that Giuliani could steal it), loses to Huckabee and McCain, and ties Romney.

Now a lot can change between now and then, and polls like this so early in the game are only indicative of a single snapshot in time. But it does make one wonder why the media have written John Edwards off so early when all the early indicators show that he's the strongest of the three front-runners against the entire Republican field.

The full poll results are here.