I don’t buy the Virginia polls – the voters of that state did not, overnight, turn into a bunch of effeminate wuss liberals – the state’s demographics can’t have changed THAT much since ’06, when in a year with suppressed Republican turnout it took a guy who had been a Republican until 2004 to defeat George Allen by a few thousand votes…..

But that national Gallup poll is EXTREMELY encouraging……

Remember what he said in his speach at the RNC convention about taxes? Obama’s tax hikes on businesses won’t effect you unless you 1) buy stuff from a business (like groceries, gas, clothes, shelter), or 2) work for a business.

That is a winning argument that even the Obama camp can’t spin their way out of.

This poll has been out since 1pm and now @ 6pm it’s a blazing red headline on Drudge?! I get it, he’s trying to make it seem like all is not lost and he doesn’t want McCain supporters to give up, but c’mon! The regular Gallup has Obama up by 6. This poll you are all so excited about is skewed to account for the fact that Republican turn out is usually higher, which will most likely not be the case this year. But I don’t blame you guys. If Obama was down right now, I’d feel the same way.

This election is particularly volatile given the continuing uncertainty about Barry’s true superhero identity – is he Marx Man? Super Socialist? The Radical Crusader? Or plain old Senator Government from Gigantor?

But I can’t believe that so many people actually shift back and forth so dramatically from day to day. There can’t be that many fence-sitting, namby pamby, wishy washy undecideds – can there?

Polling has always been an inexact science, but my dartboard doesn’t seem this random.

Gallup goes from releasing one voter model a day (registered voters I believe) to three (registered voters, traditional likely, and expanded likely) and Drudge cherry-picks the one out of three that is favorable to Senator McCain and it’s news.

They just STARTED releasing these three models. You cannot compare this number to anything they did last week or earlier because the methodology is quite different.

Frankly I’m quite annoyed with Gallup, and was as soon as I’d heard about this cockamamie multi-model daily release. What’s the point? Three sets of numbers so everybody can pick the one they want? And I was ticked well prior to reading today’s release.

Since polls are a factor in choosing who runs the government, and Dems have trouble running anything else, Dems are a pollster’s best customer!

So you give them what they want. And if they lose, you say: “well, the “expanded” poll showed you would win, so I guess you had mobilization problems”!

And, that, ladies and gentlemen, is the key to success in the consulting world.

Rove has said and continues to say Obama just cannot close the deal, so all polls are meaningless. SO many undecideds with Obama having the second highest not capable tracking numbers. I don’t know. I am convinced the pollsters have no idea if any of their samples are accurate and cannot tell how much voter registration has been compromised, and who is even telling the truth. I am not sure the campaigns have much better idea themselves. Go vote and take a friend.

Could it be that voters recognize the relationship between the future of their retirement plan and a McCain win? A cut in the capital gains tax, spending cuts, no new welfare packages (the Obama tax cuts -so called), and a candidate who does not have a need to hide associations with persons and organizations of questionable character/actions may finally be resonating.

to know that at this point in October 1980, Jimmy Carter was leading Reagan in the polls by 3 points. No wait…Reagan destroyed Carter by 10 points in the only poll that matters…the general election the first Tuesday in November.

But then you have Mondale trailing Reagan by 4 points in October 1984. No wait…Reagan destroyed Mondale by nearly 19 points election day.

There is always 1988 when Bush 41 had a scant 2 point lead on Dukakis in early October that year. Dang it all…Bush won by more than 8 points.

I see a trend here. Maybe you are the one (not “The One” of course, how could you be unless “The One” has a sock-puppet!) needing a little something to help ya sleep.

See Anne Coulter’s current article for a professional evaluation of accuracy in polling!

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=29050

I hope it’s as true as everyone else does, but one poll out of thirteen doesn’t really make me want to do jumping jacks. Let’s wait a few days and see the effect of the debate before we start trumpeting on the front page that we’re nearly tied.

If you’ve watched some of the big news outlets today, ALL but Fox has basically buried McCain. I have never witnessed just blatant bias in my entire life. They will cite the most liberal polls and hardly mention polls that are showing a basic statistic tie. We can’t let the media steal the campaign for Obama. Every republican should go out of their way to show up and vote on election day. Don’t be swayed by the left media. Your vote MATTERS! This race is much closer than the media is portraying. Let the left gloat. They will get blind-sided on election day. GO MCCAIN!

…..suddenly believe this poll? I’m not saying it isn’t good news, it definitely is.

Did anyone look at the internals? What was the partisan ID gap? Michael Barone (who I trust unflinchingly) thinks an 8-9 pt gap is not unreasonable, he doesn’t say that’s what it should be, but it is within the realm of possibility.

I’d enjoy being ahead in the polls next week. How ’bout it, eh?

I’d look at Rasmussen’s within the given battleground states. The nationwide poll is ambiguous and drives media headlines, even Drudge’s.

I am very disappointed in this thread. Why is RedSate catering to Obama trolls? They do NOT deserve the attention and coddling they are getting. The do NOT even belong here. They come for one reason: to try and discourage us. You would NOT find me over at Obama sites trying to “turn” them.

Special note to Kellie and Han–I am a Democrat. I come from a long line of Democrats–on both sides of my family. There hasn’t been a Republican vote cast in my family since the Wilson administration. The Democrats had a wonderful and qualified candidate and treated her like garbage. Instead, they embraced an unqualified, unaccomplished socialist empty suit with a questionable past and, at best, questionable friends/associates. Democrat tradion be damned, I will NEVER vote for such a dangerous man. I believe it was President Reagan who said: “I didn’t leave the Denocratic party, the Democratic party left me.”

If you look at any political polls in any country you will see liberals lead. Any media in any non-socialist / non-marxist / non-dictatorship has a big liberal bias. That’s the reason we see actual voting bucks the trend. Most independent / conservative people have a tendency to not come up with their views openly. I’ll give an example… In my office my conservative views are made fun of by my friends. I can’t possibly work in my office if I start arguing with everybody.

I wonder what the leftist media and pollsters will do when they lose the freedom that they misuse so much to propagate the liberal and socialist agenda.

I am sure we will see conservatives buck the trends… If we don’t we will need to get used to Socialist America.

Hello Red State America, “We Can Still Win!” God Bless us! McCain was great last night he finally went after that demon from the pits of the hate America crowd. I have already voted in Colorado for that great patriot, John McCain and the hockey mom we all love, Sarah Palin. The polls have never been more flawed, skewed and just plain fraudulent this year than any other year. Ignore everything and just go vote!

Wrong, that is, to offer two different daily tracking poll numbers.

One follows a tried and tested model and one reflects “the historical, amazing, and law-of-nature defying candidacy of Mr. Barack Obama.” In other words, one reflects history and facts and the other reflects conjecture and hype.

Perhaps there should be more than two models then? Perhaps Gallup should give us yet another set of numbers that reflects conjecture about how the Bradley Effect and the VP candidacy of Sarah Palin may be skewing the poll numbers? But why stop there? Why not have yet another poll which reflects fraudulent ACORN votes, and the votes of illegals, felons, and dead people?

Polling should be done according to what has proven to be accurate in all past elections. If some candidate defies those odds and shatters the old models, then we can talk about it afterwards, look at the hard data, and then adjust for the new findings in future polls. We shouldn’t simply have contrived polls that operate according to “special conditions” that supposedly favor one candidate.

On the Gallup site, in a ‘graph buried under the story of the results for Registered Voters and for Imaginary Likely Voters, the Gallup site says:

The “traditional” likely voter model, which Gallup has employed for past elections, factors in prior voting behavior as well as current voting intention. This has generally shown a closer contest, reflecting the fact that Republicans have typically been more likely to vote than Democrats in previous elections. Today’s results show Obama with a two-point advantage over McCain using this likely voter model, 49% to 47%, this is within the poll’s margin of error.

These polls strike me as vague estimates, but political pro’s need something on which to base their strategies.

What this polls means. I don’t really buy into polls in specifically but I think trending and aggregates are pretty good indicators.

Gallup just started releasing these new polls in the past week. They may be accurate, but it is hard to say since they are outside the mean of the other reputable polls and have no track record. Had this poll been around 3 weeks ago and showed McCain gaining ground that would be one thing. But a new poll with new methodologies means very little.

We’ve done EVERYTHING we can. Palin was a boost in the polls, but it wasn’t enough. Let’s REPLACE PALIN. Kay Bailey Hutchison. It’s not too late.

Palin is too redneck for most conservatives. Hutchison will appeal to our more intelligent base and being from Texas will keep her OK with the rest.

MCCAIN/HUTCHISON ’08!

NOBAMA!

I am afraid Iowa is in the tank for O’Stymie. Pride may go before the fall, but ignorance and stupidity will get one there. It seems the mid-western pragmatism means having your hand out for anything the government will throw in it.
Jim
http://www.therightguyshow.com

I volunteer at the McCain HQ in my county. Tonight, the director told us McCains internal polling is +6 McCain. This is the latest data he has heard and is supposedly only a couple days old. Also, the major OH newspapers recent poll from early in the week is +2 McCain.

The sky is not falling.

Obama is absolutely carpet bombing us with ads, everywhere. Not much from McCain at all. Its got to be 20-1 at least, and McCain is holding up here.

My county is mixed urban, suburban and rural. The county itself as a whole always goes blue. But we are full every night with callers who are not beat down, but optimistic.

My view from the ground, FWIW, is McCains keeps OH narrowly, similar to Bush in 04.

Their “traditional” likely voter model assumes 60% turnout, the highest (by a lot) in 40 years.

Their hype likely voter model assumes two-thirds turnout, which is significantly more than has ever happened since women got the franchise.

I very much doubt the real number is going to go much above the former, and wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t even hit that.

Rasmussen is steady because he holds party ID constant… But he hasn’t really gotten a good measure since he adjusts by month and Palin’s nom and the credit crisis put everything into flux in September. I wouldn’t trust his numbers until just before the election.

While it is true that mccain gained some ground and obama dropped, the daily election polling still shows obama with a 49%-43% lead through wednesday night. try not to get too excited.

I’m a straight-up liberal, and I have to tell you guys, I was more worried about a McCain comeback a week ago than I am now.

Or what I mean is, on the whole, McCain has had better days and he’s had them recently. He had a nice kick upwards on the RCP index about ten or eleven days ago that I don’t remember hearing much talk about.

So why all the talk now? Genuinely curious.

and both well hidden in the MSM. I first heard the Gallup numbers (49-47%) reported by Larry Kudlow on CNBC, and later on FOX. Earlier, Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll show a continued narrowing of the gap, with a 50-46% spread….given it’s closeness to the Gallup numbers, it’s pretty clear that this is about a 3 point race. Were Obama trailing, the media would remind us that the results were “within the margin of error”

Just for grins–or to aggravate myself–I listened to CNN for a couple of hours. Hard to do, given that it was idiot Anderson Cooper’s time slot. He babbled on about the race, but made no mention of any poll numbers.

Bottom line, CNN, MSNBC, et al. won’t report either the big story–the tightening of the polls–or even the individual numbers as they become available. But CNN did have John King with his little map/chalkboard, trying to tell us that a McCain victory is increasingly impossible. As Hannity says, 2008 will go down as the year that journalism died in America.

and both well hidden in the MSM. I first heard the Gallup numbers (49-47%) reported by Larry Kudlow on CNBC, and later on FOX. Earlier, Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll show a continued narrowing of the gap, with a 50-46% spread….given it’s closeness to the Gallup numbers, it’s pretty clear that this is about a 3 point race. Were Obama trailing, the media would remind us that the results were “within the margin of error”

Just for grins–or to aggravate myself–I listened to CNN for a couple of hours. Hard to do, given that it was idiot Anderson Cooper’s time slot. He babbled on about the race, but made no mention of any poll numbers.

Bottom line, CNN, MSNBC, et al. won’t report either the big story–the tightening of the polls–or even the individual numbers as they become available. But CNN did have John King with his little map/chalkboard, trying to tell us that a McCain victory is increasingly impossible. As Hannity says, 2008 will go down as the year that journalism died in America.

and both well hidden in the MSM. I first heard the Gallup numbers (49-47%) reported by Larry Kudlow on CNBC, and later on FOX. Earlier, Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll show a continued narrowing of the gap, with a 50-46% spread….given it’s closeness to the Gallup numbers, it’s pretty clear that this is about a 3 point race. Were Obama trailing, the media would remind us that the results were “within the margin of error”

Just for grins–or to aggravate myself–I listened to CNN for a couple of hours. Hard to do, given that it was idiot Anderson Cooper’s time slot. He babbled on about the race, but made no mention of any poll numbers.

Bottom line, CNN, MSNBC, et al. won’t report either the big story–the tightening of the polls–or even the individual numbers as they become available. But CNN did have John King with his little map/chalkboard, trying to tell us that a McCain victory is increasingly impossible. As Hannity says, 2008 will go down as the year that journalism died in America.

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1595

Check out the internals in this brand new poll from Zogby.

First, again, Obama is losing steam down the stretch. It may have been cute and trendy to say you were supporting Obama at the beginning, but now people are getting serious. The Dems in Iowa and other early states started something they could not stop, but this is not the case in the general.

Barack Obama flat stole the Dem nomination. He won’t steal the general.

He has it tied among men. I don’t buy that for one nanosecond. That’s garbage. Rasmussen was not very good in the primaries this year.

I don’t buy his polling. He’s been consistent, but I am still not buying his methodology with Obama.