While Hispanics generally preferred Hillary Clinton to Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, a solid majority of Hispanics have consistently backed Obama against McCain in general-election trial heats. Obama has led McCain by about a 2-to-1 margin since Gallup began tracking general-election voting preferences in early March.

The timing on the polling was between March and June -- Clinton was still campaigning much of the time so a unity bounce with Hispanics will probably be dampened.

But it also shows something that many of us knew all along -- that Hispanics were not voting against Obama, but they were actually voting for Clinton.

But of course us Hispanics, like any group of people, are not a monolithic voting bloc.

Perhaps the only exceptions to this general pattern come among the minority of Hispanic voters who identify themselves as Republicans (18%) or who say they have conservative political views (36%). McCain leads Obama among Hispanic Republicans, and is about even with him among Hispanic conservatives.

The numbers are pretty impressive when put in another context -- his support is ahead of that of John Kerry's results in 2004. The Hispanic votes went to Kerry by a 59 to 40 margin against Bush.  McCain would need to pick up all the undecided voters to reach this same margin.

So can we get rid of the "Hispanics won't vote for Obama" memo?