Follow my reasoning and correct me were I'm wrong here.
Hillary is liked by rank and file democrats, disliked by independents, hated by republicans.
Obama is liked by rank and file democrats, liked by independents, indifferent to Republicans.
McCain is indifferent to rank and file democrats, liked by independents, basically acceptable to Republicans.
Where does this put us in a match up of the two frontrunners?
Jump.
The Republican base is deflated as Georgia10 pointed out. McCain will not energize them, so he will go for independents to make up for the lack of enthusiasm in his base. Between Hillary and McCain, he will take independents. The problem is, the only person that energizes their base is Hillary. So McCain takes independents, while Hillary energizes the GOP base, and at the same time is currently in the process of deflating the democratic base by alienating vast portions of the Obama coalition.
On the other hand, I think we can safely assume that Obama will continue to be liked by independents, liked by democrats, and at least not energize the GOP base anything like Hillary is going to. So with Obama, you get at least evenly split independents, deflated GOP base, and still energized and unified democratic base.
Where is my logic wrong here?