Daily Movement--For the paranoid poll watcher...

October 28--It is amazing that the McCain campaign has managed to narrow the gap on the election over the past few days, despite running, by all accounts, one of the worst campaigns imaginable. Reported infighting, tension between the candidates, lack of a succinct message, etc. Still Reuters/Zogby has the race at 4 points, and tightening. I am interested to see what this Syria news means for the election. Do people get scared, and run back to the daddy party (Brand R)? It only takes 4 in 100 to make a trend...


October 26--I have been getting lax on the updates. It does seem as if there is a drift to McCain lately. But I don't see it in the states, which means there is either a lag factor, or it isn't a real drift at all. The standard deviations are are getting larger (ie, all the polls used to be between 7-10 points for Obama, now they are more like 2-13 points and anywhere in between.). What does that mean? I am not sure at this point. I am looking to see if the numbers recompress around a new spine, that is somewhere different than 6-7 points in favor of Obama. McCain looked less than sharp on Meet The Press...

October 21--Polls have stretched out to favor Obama. I will be interested to see if Biden's gaffe on "America coming under attack from somewhere in the world" during an Obama presidency, could ignite the population at large to re-think their affinity for an untested leader. Also, Obama will be visiting his sick Grandmother for the next couple of days, and will not be available for comment, or counterpunches during this time. The door is still open a crack. Can McCain and Palin get through, and capitalize? We shall see. If they can't make the case on this, they may be running short of opportunities. The counter to their arguement is that the country just saw Colin Powell endorse Obama for President. Kind of hard to make the case that McCain would be the steady leader in a time of crisis, foreign or domestic. But we shall see. After all, I am not from a small town, so perhaps I just don't understand the values of "real america..."

October 20--Polls tightened, and then started to swing to Obama a little by this morning. I don't think we know the impact of Joe The Plumber, Sarah Palin on SNL, or the Powell endorsement yet. This is probably the last week I think about the national polls. Next week I will keep an eye on state polls, starting with Virginia, and moving out to Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, Missouri and North Carolina. At this point, it looks like Obama has 264 close to locked down, and the battle will be to pull one of the states I have mentioned here, over to his side. Despite the polls, I will believe it only when I see it...

October 17--Polls continue to tighten. Strangely no one seems to notice. I think they will if McCain starts to win some of the tracking polls. What I have yet to see is the movement away from Obama in the state polls. But the states do tend to lag the national polls, so let's see in the next few days. McCain is closer than people think. The media has been missing the boat on this.

October 16--We will have to see what the debate may have caused, but polls out today show the race narrowing even further. No major poll has Obama up more than 8, and Gallup has it as close as 2 points (depending on how they look at things). Here comes General (or should I say Admiral?) McCain, charging up the hill! As usual, Karl Rove put out the seeds of doubt that Obama still hasn't closed the deal. While I disagree with that, I do think that the race is really closer to a 3 point lead than an 8 point lead.

The markets are relatively flat, but that will probably change by 4pm. I have yet to see a good post debate poll that shows any real movement, but the overall trend has been away from Obama...


October 15--I think it is starting to move to McCain. I have a bet with co-workers on the election, and who is going to win. Naturally, it was easy to take a bet, considering how many people were betting on Obama. I took McCain, and took the over on the 286 over/under line. I think this race will tighten, and eventually, it could flip McCain's way.

There are a few factors to consider, before that happens. The market is down 500 points, and McCain has shown he can't debate for anything. He's snippy, and doesn't hide his disdain for Obama. If he can keep it in check, and beat the tax cut drum, and get Obama on his heels, he can cut the lead a few points. It's only about a 5 point race now. If he can get it to 2-3 points by the weekend, it's basically a tossup. If he can't, or if the race widens through the weekend, he could be toast. We shall see...