I've long wondered about the origins of the "creative" name movement.

Recently on one my local TV stations a young man was interviewed about a community project he worked on. His name was pronounced MON.tray.al and the chyron read Montreal.

Can you point to either poll you are referencing?

I've been to the CNN website and can find no such information.

Nate at www.fivethirtyeight.com does a pretty good job of explaining why the information you are referencing is misleading:

There is a little bit of sleight-of-hand here. The analysis begins by comparing Obama's performance in this new poll to CNN's next-most-recent one, which had been conducted in late July. However, CNN then switches to discussing a different poll, one which was conducted in late June, and pulls several pieces of information about the preferences of Hillary Clinton supporters from that June version of its survey.

Why does this matter? The hypothesis suggested by the article is that Barack Obama's support has been impaired by the negative reactions of Hillary Clinton's supporters to his VP pick. The best way to test that would be to compare a poll conducted immediately before the VP pick to one conducted immediately after, before other events had a chance to intervene.

CNN is only in the field once a month or so, and so their most recent poll had been conducted three or four weeks ago, not quite as recent as we'd like. However, this would still be a lot better than a poll conducted seven or eight weeks ago. Why didn't CNN cite the preferences of Clinton supporters from its July poll instead of its June one?

Well, there are two possible reasons. Reason #1 is that they did not identify Clinton supporters in July, but had done so in June and then again now in August. This is entirely possible; most pollsters rotate different sorts of questions into and out of their polls in different months.

But we have no way to know, because CNN has not released any additional detail on at least its last three polls: no complete set of topline results, and certainly no detailed cross-tabular information. The only information we get is the information that their analysts decide to make available to us.

Essentially every other reputable polling organization, including Gallup, CBS/NYT, NBC/Wall Street Journal, ABC/Washington Post, Fox News/Opinion Dyanamics, LA Times/Bloomberg, Newsweek/Princeton Associates, Economist/YouGov, Rasmussen, SurveyUSA, Pew, Cook/RT Strategies, Public Policy Polling, Mason-Dixon, Quinnipiac, Tarrance/Battleground, IBD/TIPP, Hotline/FD and Democracy Corps, routinely makes this kind of information available. A handful of others are less consistent about it, however, they tend to strike a far less editorial tone in the presentation of their results than does CNN.

The other possibility, of course, is that CNN did identify Clinton supporters in its July poll, but chose not to cite those results because they didn't fit with its storyline. The number of Clinton-supporting Democrats will be fairly small in any given survey (probably about one-sixth of the total sample), and results from that subgroup will therefore shift around a lot, with or without reason.

All a poll really is is a series of statistics, and all statistics really are are facts, expressed numerically. As such, they deserve the same respect as any other series of facts reported in any other journalistic context. Too often pollsters think that they are making news by a conducting a poll, rather than simply reporting it.

If this election is derailed by either SHE is the one that will pay the price. A wild Bill - in other words one that acts outside the desires of the president elect - will sink her future.

This crap needs to end. I've over the drama.

is when they introduced it to the US

"There's no juice in there...it says so on the can

Can't taste the juice....can't taste the juice"

were exactly the ones that turned me off to Clinton.

Its always the Clintons first, not country, not party.

Hit a home run tonight Senator Clinton, please.

How come his name not bandied about?

I've recently thought the theme song to McCain's candidacy should be the theme from "All in the Family", "Those were the Days".

Boy, the way Glenn Miller played.

Songs that made the Hit Parade.

Guys like us, we had it made.

Those were the days.

Didn't need no welfare state.

Everybody pulled his weight.

Gee, our old LaSalle ran great.

Those were the days.

And you know who you were then.

Girls were girls and men were men.

Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.

People seemed to be content. Fifty dollars paid the rent.

Freaks were in a circus tent. Those were the days.

Take a little Sunday spin, go to watch the Dodgers win.

Have yourself a dandy day that cost you under a fin.

Hair was short and skirts were long. Kate Smith really sold a song.

I don't know just what went wrong.

Those Were The Days.

I see Novak now has brain damage. Poor guy. I guess he wanted to get this done before he meets his old friend Ken Lay.

On a side note: I am surprised at home few of my friends or family know what a PUMA is. It leads me to believe that only us hyper-aware folks know or care.

Senator Clinton's speech worked well because it appeals to both her supporters and the average television viewer. I think we shoudl all follow her advice and get to work defeating McCain.