Latest national poll shows Democratic race tightening. Bad time for Hillary to be losing momentum.

As I've mentioned here before, I really think Hillary may have a problem getting the Democratic nomination. First, a caveat: At this point, national polls don't really matter. The key polls are those in the early states including Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. That being said, however, there is a trend developing in the national polls for the Democratic nomination shown in the latest Reuters/Zogby poll. Hillary Clinton isn't looking so dominating and invincible:

Clinton led Obama 38 percent to 27 percent in the new poll, a 10-point fall from her 46 percent to 25 percent lead last month. The drop followed a month of attacks on the New York senator from her rivals and a heavily criticized performance in a late-October debate.

Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina remained in third place, climbing four points to 13 percent. All other Democratic contenders scored in low single digits, including New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson at 4 percent.

About 14 percent of Democratic voters nationwide are still uncertain of their choice as the first contest approaches in Iowa, which kicks off the state-by-state battle to pick candidates for the November 4, 2008, presidential election.

The poll was similar to several other national and state surveys showing Obama, a first-term Illinois senator, gaining on Clinton, the senator from New York who has led most polls all year.

This is a bad time to be losing momentum for any candidate. Tomorrow starts the holiday season. Even in the early states, it's going to be hard for voters to focus on caucuses and primaries which fall in early January. It's going to be very difficult for Clinton to regain momentum during December. The first caucus in Iowa is January 3rd. There's almost no time to refocus the attention of voters after the holidays but before voting actually starts.

I don't have a horse in this nomination race. I'll support the Democratic nominee whoever she or he may be. But from the perspective of a political junkie, this is getting very, very interesting to say the least.