Well, I like the attacking McCain's sliminess part. Hear hear.

I also agree that might sink his numbers eventually, but that also implies that these polls now mean nothing about what the final ones will be come November.

Which would sort of destroy the whole argument about freaking out now.

No?

This, however I think needs a really good look:

"Even Obama supporters in the blogosphere are starting to panic over Obama's seeming drift."

Okay that would be fine except that to back that up you cite three, one of whom is Kos, of whom you say:

"Over at Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas is calmer, warning against an early freakout, reminding Democrats Obama still has a veep choice to make, and a convention to wow. Kos would be more convincing if there was any reason to think Obama's veep choice will either energize his base, or independents. There's no evidence it will do either....

The part in bold (my emphasis) to me says essentially "Kos would be more convincing if there were reason to think he was more convincing".

What's more interesting is that I had just read his post also, and the parts you didn't quote are far more to the point IMO.

First of all it's called "The Big Freakout", and the beginning includes this:

"So I sauntered over to Pollster.com to see what all the hoopla was about, and clicked through to their national polls page. Then I rolled my eyes when I saw that the poll causing such aneurysms was ....

A Zogby poll.

Some people are frackin' hopeless. Really. At the same time, a new Q-poll has Obama up five, Gallup has him up three (after being tied a couple of days ago), Ras has him up two, as does Bloomberg/Times.

Look, the race is tightening at the national level, but it's much less tight when you look at the state-by-state numbers that, you know, actually decide the presidency. So while it's not exactly a cakewalk, freaking out over single polls from shitty, discredited pollsters like Zogby is pretty pathetic."

I find all of this far more to the point here. Especially when your response is to characterize him as one of three examples of people in the blogosphere who "are starting to panic" and then not address his main argument and instead address a more peripheral issue about VPs and respond with a circular argument about it.

Let me try that again:

He's not saying we shouldn't panic about the dizzying plunge in polls because the VP choice will save us.

He's saying it doesn't exist.

Just to inject a little reality into the discussion, never hurts, right?

Latest polls:

(Pollster.com)

(Poll Name / McCain / Obama )

Rasumussen____45 47
Times Bloomberg 43 45
Gallup_________43 46
Quinnipac______42 47
Zogby_________46 41

So, lessee,

Obama +2
Obama +2
Obama +3
Obama +5
McCain +5

So 80% of the polls have Obama up from 2 to 5 points, and 20% (one poll) have McCain up 5 points.

So sure, I'd say an average of that is "Oh my god they're tied!!"

Er, not.

Sorry I know it's a lot less fun once you remove the entire premise for two days of articles and TV shows.

More about McCain's sliminess (please) and less about fantasies, even if they're ones that "everyone is saying".

I find that reality works wonders for getting unstuck from all sorts of things. It's really a very useful place, all sorts of things become clear. More people should go there at least some of the time.

However, we know how that works.

So it goes.

Wrong again.

The lines aren't going anywhere, they've been steady for months. If it's a tie now, then it has been all along, according to you. It hasn't CHANGED, is the point, even by your assesment, which contradicts this entire hysterical thread.

All that snotty arrogance about calculus doesn't change the facts.

It's all been in a range, for months. And polls mean nothing at this point.

By the way, I wrote exactly nothing about the Clintons in my post. The word appeared exactly zero times.

The fact that you turned your response into a rant about "Clinton haters" tells me and anyone else reading all we need to know.

Salon has become a joke, because of this crowd. The rest of the world moves on.

http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/08-us-pres-ge-mvo.php

Okay so here's a link to trend lines.

Do you see a trend? That little upward/downward tick of the past few days?

Is that really what your claim of validity for the hysteria this thread is based on?

Wow.

I do pity any students you might teach, if all that arrogant tossing around of math cred is based on some dreams of grandeur from a teaching gig or something.

Again, I said nothing about hating the Clintons, not even in the most recent post. Amazing how you keep bringing it up. It "fits" me? Despite not having expressed a word on the subject?

Yeah, a paragon of rationality, you are.

Good luck with that paranioa thing.

I'd love someone like you to look at that chart and explain how every little wiggle up or down is based on ads, or who said what, which day. In fact some of them are so tiny and wiggly that they must represent PARTS of ads, okay, so here's the part where McCain said this, but then the rest of the ad wasn't that great so that's why it went down the next day, and...

And you tell me not to give up my day job?

The ad hominem was a nice touch. Mine was general, but hey, go for it. You've got nothing else but arrogance as far as I can see.