Mumbo jumbo, American style.

Believe it or not, kiddies, it is time once again for savants, shamans, and assorted snake oil salesmen to rip the entrails out of a chicken or two and predict the future. (Past results do not predict future performance. Or necessarily get you within the margin of error.)

Time magazine (Yeah, I know. But they are still around.) sacrifices a fine feathered friend in the name of what they call democracy...

Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner to win the Democratic party's nomination for President in 2008, but the Republican race will be a close contest between Senator John McCain and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani — with McCain edging Giuliani by a three- to four-point margin. And a presidential face-off between Clinton and McCain, right now, would be close to a dead heat. Those are some of the key findings of a new TIME poll earlier this week that canvassed a random sample of 1,064 registered voters by phone.

Despite the buzz generated by Senator Barack Obama entering the race, the survey found that Senator Clinton would beat him for the Democratic nomination by a margin of 40% to 21%. Senator John Edwards is a distant third with 11%. Obama clearly suffers a disadvantage in profile among likely voters, with only 51% indicating that they knew enough about him to form an opinion, compared with 94% saying the same of Hillary Clinton. In Obama's favor, however, is his far lower negative ratings. While 58% of voters familiar with Hillary Clinton have a positive view of her, 41% give her negative marks, for a net favorability score of +17. By contrast, Obama's net favorability score is +47. On the Republican side, Giuliani has a net favorability rating of +68, with only 14% having a negative view of him. McCain's net favorability score is +45.

McCain, however, holds a narrow lead of 30% to 26% over Giuliani for the GOP nomination. A race between McCain and Clinton would be a virtual tie (47%-47%), according to the poll, while McCain would beat either Obama or Senator John Edwards by a 7-point margin.