Another sign of a thaw as the end approaches?

Top Hillary adviser Terry McAuliffe, on Fox tonight, appears to go slightly off-message, saying that, yes, Obama can win the critical swing states in a general election...

"If Senator Obama's the nominee, can we win these states? Of course," McAuliffe said.

To be fair to Camp Hillary, her advisers have generally stopped short of saying Obama can't win in these states. They've generally stuck to the message that Hillary is a better candidate in those states (though Mark Penn at one point said flatly that Obama can't win the general).

But Hillary advisers have of course tried to sow fear among super-dels and others about Obama's prospects in these states, and McAuliffe's comments are tonally a bit out of sync with that.