The Concord (NH) Monitor released results of a Research 2000 poll it commissioned today. The essentials: Hillary Clinton has a razor-thin 22%-21% lead over Barack Obama (what's known as a statistical tie), with John Edwards at in a competitive third place at 16%.
FWIW, on the GOP Side, something similar has happened with Rudy Giuliani slightly leading John McCain, 26%-25%, with Mitt Romney in third at 10%.
Obviously, it's still more than a year before the Iowa Caucuses or New Hampshire Primary (although that could change). However, these new poll results combined with the recent polling out of Iowa suggest that one of the great strategic underpinnings of the nascent Hillary '08 effort -- the inevitability and expectation of relative ease of her winning the nomination -- has utterly collapsed.
Hillary Clinton is no longer "the frontrunner" for the Democratic Nomination. In fact, there is no "front-runner." You now essentially have a fight between roughly three equals.
The strategic calculation by Hillary Clinton and her advisors to take a passive approach in 2006 to pursuing the nomination now would appear to be a tremendous mistake.
For Barack Obama, the impetus is simple, he needs to start a campaign, right now, in order to consolidate his polling gains and to press his advantage forward. Right now, his support is all due to personality, celebrity, and a huge media attention bubble. He needs to start reinforcing that support with policy and ideological affinity or the bubble will pop.
For John Edwards, he needs to define himself as distinct from Clinton and Obama.
For the others not named Obama, Edwards, or Clinton, this poll actually is a good thing. It means voters haven't settled their opinions yet. There's still time for someone to get hot and surge to the top.