Hillary Rodham v. Saint McCain

Hillary Rodham Clinton leads John McCain in the polls 51-44, but John McCain leads Hillary Clinton 48-47 in the same poll. Huh?

(CNN) -- If presidential elections were held today, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would likely have a comfortable edge over Sen. John McCain, but take away her maiden name and McCain has a better shot of landing in the Oval Office.

So say the results of a CNN poll released Friday by Opinion Research Corp., which asked 506 adult Americans whom they preferred among potential 2008 presidential candidates. The margin of error for the survey is plus or minus 4.5 percent.

Asked if they preferred Hillary Rodham Clinton to McCain, respondents gave the Democratic New York senator and former first lady a 51 percent to 44 percent advantage over the Republican Senator from Arizona. Remove "Rodham" and McCain had a 1 percentage point advantage, 48 percent to 47 percent.

I have no idea what this means, but at least it suggests that Saint McCain is not invulnerable.

Question: Do you suppose she would lead by even more if they dropped the "Clinton" altogether and just called her Hillary Rodham?