Why would anyone take your advice, lame as it is, on policy, when you cant even read polls or the nations sentiment with any degree of accuracy?

I think he's living in his own reality. The job numbers just came out and the economy continues to strengthen. There are no national polls that show Kerry "way ahead". The only poll that shows Kerry ahead is the Newsweek one which is a 2 point lead and that's well within the margin of error. All the other major polls show Bush ahead.

All the other major polls show Bush ahead.

Well, the most recent Gallup poll showed a tie. And while I know Kerry's not "way" ahead anywhere, I like your optimism, Bahu!

Here's a site that takes all the local polls and puts together an electoral map:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

There is every indication that John Kerry is making inroads even in traditional republican areas. With less than four weeks left for Election Day the undecided voters will make their minds. Further, Ralh Nader is not going to pich uo the antiBush votes,they will fall only in favor of Kerry. What about the CNN poll. It also went in favor of Kerry. At this point George II is trailing by2 points, and I do understand that it is not a great lead for Kerry. But a landslide for Kerry would bring peace to Iraq.

Reply #5 By: Bahu Virupaksha - 10/6/2004 1:14:19 AM There is every indication that John Kerry is making inroads even in traditional republican areas. With less than four weeks left for Election Day the undecided voters will make their minds. Further, Ralh Nader is not going to pich uo the antiBush votes,they will fall only in favor of Kerry. What about the CNN poll. It also went in favor of Kerry. At this point George II is trailing by2 points, and I do understand that it is not a great lead for Kerry. But a landslide for Kerry would bring peace to Iraq.

That 2% is within the margin of error usually +/- 2-3%. I wouldn't start crowing just yet.And BTW CNN isn't the only poll around.

The overall consensus on the polls is that Bush maintains a slim but definite lead. But you know what? YOu're right, Kerry's got it all wrapped up. So you don't even need to go vote because it's going to be such a landslide that you can just stay at home..

Thanks goodness the United States of America is a Republic that elects the President using the Electoral system set forth by the Constitution. Kerry can have the popular vote for all I care, Bush can take the electorate.

Unfortunately, it's becoming increasingly clear that this race is too close for the polls to be that useful, other than to tell you if a candidate is doing better or worse than he was doing last month.

For example. Gallup regularly has nearly 40% of its respondents identifying as Republicans. That's much higher than the number Republican party ID voters in any recent presidential election. Have that many people changed parties? Probably not, but who knows? My guess is that there's a methodological reason they're oversampling Republicans; especially since most similar polls are not finding so many Republicans.

On the other hand, Zogby and Rasmussen both normalize the numbers to reflect that partisan balance of the last presidential election, which was something like 35% Democratic sand slightly fewer Republicans. Those numbers are off the top of my head: your mileage may vary. That means that if they have a Republican or Democratic response rate that varies from the 2000 election percentages, they adjust the poll results to reflect 2000-like party identification figures. The problem with that is that party IDs change over time, and no one knows if the current balance of Democrats and Republicans is that same as in 2000.

As far as I can tell, all you can do is watch how a poll does compared to its previous figures. That way, you can tell which candidate has momentum. On the other hand, you still can't tell which polls are more accurate, which means that when some polls show a candidate winning and other polls show a tie, either case is a possibility.

If you're following the state polls, in order to project the electoral college, there are other problems. For one thing, state polls often have smaller sample sizes, so they can be pretty unreliable. Additionally, many states polls are still within the margin of error, and probably shouldn't even be counted. Race2004 does a good job of distinguishing between states that strongly support Bush or Kerry, and states that only weakly support a candidate or are basically undecided. I think the "strong" counts are probably the most useful, because the "weak" counts tend to change quickly from day to day, fast enough that the change is suspect and may be caused by methodology. The strong count has favored Bush -- currently 178-153 -- for at least the last few weeks.

"Further, Ralh Nader is not going to pich uo the antiBush votes,they will fall only in favor of Kerry. "

Nadar will be on the ballots in some states, and there are folks here that have already stated their intention to vote for the Libertarian candidate. Perhaps some of these would be people otherwise voting for Bush, but the vast majority are people who feel that Kerry's views aren't fringe enough for them... if such a thing is possible.

Predicting the political fortunes of any candidate is touch and go even in the best of times. Yet the recent disclosures have made the Americans decide that a change is better. Afterall George II took tha country to war without reason. A regime change in the US will be good for the world just as the regime change in Iraq was good.

"Afterall George II took tha country to war without reason."

A war too soon, or too late? It is easy for you sitting, ranting into your blog to pretend you'd know what to do, but in reality you'd have to decide which intelligence to follow, and where the risk was greater. With the world screaming for the prevention of terrorist attacks, and reports, though conflicting, that Saddam Hussein had WMDs, you might well decide that now is better than later.

Don't pretend it is a simple situation. Hussein's generals weren't informed about their lack of WMDs until three months before the war according to the most recent report. Given your bias and reactions, I think we should be glad for this regime over any you would lead. At the very least Hussein was removed before he was allowed to return to his business.

I wouldn't start crowing just yet.And BTW CNN isn't the only poll around.

I'm glad to see you finally took my advice on needing multiple polls over time to obtain an image and direction of the race.
Drmiler is right, you need a poll of the polls to get an idea of the direction of the race. Mainly because while there is a MoE for each poll, sometimes odd things happen to make a poll inaccurate. Plus looking at polls over time allow a better idea for how much of a change has occurred. A poll of the polls usually smooth out some inconsistencies and allows you to get a more accurate picture of the race. Two good sites:
Link
gives the race with all the national polls over a time range. You can also find the state polls in battleground states over time there.

Link
Shows the electoral count based on the daily polls in the states since May I believe. It's interesting to see how cyclic it has been (almost like a sine wave).

Whoever wins Ohio will win the election. That's my prediction.