While you COULD be right, Alex, you could also be wrong. Lets wait to see if Obama ACTUALLY screws up before we jump all over his case for it, ok? thx.

Please don't degenerate into network-like filler news of no real merit. If you've got nothing to post, post nothing.

Degenerate? You've really got to be kidding. This is nothing new here.

What's interesting is that it's all utter nonsense. I've posted links to a Gallup poll here that showed Obama with a steady six point lead for months. The result? Nothing. No one disuputes it, but the comments return to the "Okay, interesting, so anyway since McCain took the lead, let's figure out why" and cast blame and fight and criticize and troll and etc.

And the articles here are no better. "McCain succesfully turned Obama's popularity against him". Oh yeah? Prove it.

There are daily tracking polls that show a huge lurch every day. Is that one ad? It can't be, unless ads come once a day. Okay, so well, this day's lurch represents the first part of the ad, then the next day it went down because you see, the ad got a little boring in the middle, then...

Anyone who confidently proclaims being able to tie wiggles in opinion polls to a specific ad, or even series of ads, is completely full of it.

But hey, it's a living.

The country runs on accepted wisdom, regurgitated without question. It would be nice if "alternative" magazines didn't. I'm really going to stop using that term for this place though. Someone the other day, by the way, said "Oh Salon, but that's like some women's magazine, right?"

I had to laugh. Wanted to scream though too. Ah well.

@Bill E. Pilgrim I don't know what you're talking about. Gallup has only had Obama 6 points ahead of McCain once in the last month, and they have him tied right now. Do you have another source for Gallup data than their web site?

****

Maybe because you didn't read what I wrote? I didn't say I posted it today, I wrote "I have posted" And I have:

August 19/22, Registered Voters, Gallup

Presidential choice

RV 8/19-22 (July) (June)

Obama 49 (50) (49)

McCain 43 (42) (45)

So that's over three months, pretty much stable. If you're looking at numbers showing a wiggle in the past three days, or week, how does that reflect "McCain was successful painting Obama as too popular". Did those McCain "Celebrity" ads come out yesterday? This week?

Oops.

People confidently proclaiming why polls move based on one campaign ad or several campaign ads is the worst kind of hackery. It's all too common, but that doesn't change the fact that it's nonsense.

So, at some point in those three months, the daily or weekly poll showed McCain pulling even, even if he then fell behind again. So explain to me how that poll was "right"? If it meant anything about the end result, how is it possible that Obama raced ahead again??

And then the fortune tellers come out again: Oh, well see, Obama successfully got across his message again that week by wearing the right tie...

Utter, complete nonsense. And no one questions it.

I for one am tired of second guessing every move against what the batshit crazy shrieking Republican right may think.

As far as I can tell that's the raison d'être of Salon.com, so if you're going to read here often you're going to be tired of it a LOT.

At no point did I write anything about an entire month remaining at exactly the same numbers, or Obama being ahead every single day by the same amount. I know you keep reading it that way but I can't help you there.

Let me cut to the chase here: You're missing my point. which is that polls are meaningless here. They start to have some meaning just around now, and are still about as predictable of the result, historically, as blind chance.

Should I demonstrate again? Okay.

That link you sent, on:
April 28 May 2
McCain 48 Obama 42

That's what I get. I held my mouse over it just as you suggested, and voila.

So do you want to explain how McCain going from a five-point lead in May to six points down later (June 7-9, McCain 42 Obama 48) represents "McCain succesfully convinced voters that Obama was too popular"?

Or okay, let's zoom in on that claim precisely, the McCain "Obama's a big celebrity!" ad came out the first couple days of August. So lesse, as a reaction to that McCain zoomed from being behind by one point (July 31/Aug 2 McCain 43 Obama 44) to..... Obama ahead by six points (Aug 10/12 Obama 48 McCain 42).

Yes, indisputable proof. Losing five points, that's "success" I can only hope that McCain keeps having right to D Day.

You can't find any more empirical evidence of this kind of nonsense any more than its opposite in these figures. This, I repeat just in case it might actually get through, is my point.

What this means is not "Obama is winning!" which I get the impression you keep trying to read into my posts as much as saying that all of this accepted wisdom that McCain "caught up" and he did it with certain ad campaigns and etc is utter, complete idiocy. And once you debunk that premise, even though "everyone just knows it's true", then almost everything written here especially is meaingless.

Sells lots of ads though.