I'm going to echo Brian here. If you're a Salon politics junkie and check the Salon posts a few times a day, you're going to want to check out Nate Silver's blog:

FiveThirtyEight.com

It's all you need. All other polling stories seem way out of date and incomplete!

I am so ashamed of living in Ohio.

This past weekend, the Ohio Newspapers Poll revealed the stentch of hidden white racism towards Blacks. This occult, repugnant racism that permeates the suburbs and rural areas marks the isolation of this state. I suppose when all you've got is the Buckeyes, who needs to leave the state? Sadly, many Ohioans really feel this way, especially those that have not left their small towns, including Columbus, the state capital.

We've become a backwater state, still reeling from the perfidy and greed from the previous State administration that was tossed out en masse by voters in 2006. Except for liberal enclaves of Cuyahoga County, Oberlin and Kent, intolerance lives large in small-minded Ohio.

As a Clevelander, I only have to go to the next county to see stars-and-bars (Dixie flags) posted on flag poles and car windows. Shame.

So, despite the poorly counted youth vote, Obama supporters can write off Ohio as easily as they would Mississippi, Idaho and Utah.

You might want to give some credit to his swing state strategy and enormous grassroots operation.

And never more so than when the financial system is bordering on collapse. And Obama needs to talk specifics for sure, but he also needs to talk principals -- and those include the fact that a party which has supported deregulation and hands-off-the-markets policies for decades cannot be trusted to make sure this type of disaster never happens again. They're not trustworthy, they brought us to the brink and then tell the country that we have 5 business days to fix a massive problem, they propose a plan that gives laughable amounts of power to an executive branch that has proven again and again they cannot (indeed don't even want to try to) govern on most domestic matters.

His lead should really be opening up on this issue. If it does not, we all have to ask ourselves whether racism is playing a bigger role in this than anyone imagined.

... because they are meaningless! I want to scream at my TV and newspaper every day when a new national poll result is announced. It doesn't matter what a national poll says, as it doesn't matter what the national popular vote count is.

Historically speaking a significant lead in national polls are a good indicator of the eventual electoral college, Not necessarily in the margin of victory, but in the declared winner.

When national polls are too close to call, they are useless as a judgement, but since the polls are (like the electroal college) weighted towards population, even that can be revealing on the eventual electoral count.

Now, if Senator Obama has a significant lead in the national polls that means Senator McCain does not have a significant enough lead in rural votes, which are his strong hold, and indicates the possibility of electoral flips in "battle ground states".

Likewise, if Senator McCain has a significant lead in the national polls that means Senator Obama does not have a significant enough lead in urban areas, meaning again the possibility of electoral flips in battle ground states.

Electoral victories that are not related to popular victories are historically rare (I believe we've had maybe one or two a century at best)and as such national polls do give a great bit of information, especially when one candidate pulls away from the other above the margin of error.

State by state polls are also less accurate since the pools from which they draw is significantly less then can be drawn for a national poll. As such an outlier is much more likely in a state poll then a national poll, since each pollie in a national poll accounts for fewer votes than in a state poll.

You are correct that the state by state polls are significant because they allow us to pick state by state winners, and inform the campaigns as to where their efforts might make the best return on investment. But as an overall estimate of the national preference which historically is reflected in the eventual electoral count, national polls are helpfull in gaining an assessment.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

He has everything you need there. No wondering about each individual poll.

On Sunday the Columbus Dispatch (and presumably other newspapers) put out their first joint poll. It's found at http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/09/21/OHIOPOLL21.ART_ART_09-21-08_A1_HDBCHUM.html?sid=101.

It has McCain ahead. But it came out before the meltdown on Wall Street last week. The polls now out elsewhere in the state after this event are telling a different story. I too look forward to seeing an updated Ohio poll.

I've been knocking on doors for Obama in my center to conservative town near Columbus. The doors are vetted by voter history, so I don't knock on hard core Republicans.

The moderates/independents I'm speaking with are quite positive for Obama. They know this is a vital election and are planning on getting everyone they know out to vote. The Obama campaign is well organized with lots of volunteers. I am hopeful that these numbers and this energy will turn this state blue.

There are scenarios where Obama wins w/o Ohio. But not many scenarios where McCain wins without it. We want to win here, so that the news calls the election on Nov 4th as soon as it becomes clear that Ohio is Obama's.

Why do so many (any) news organizations continue to commission national polls and then publish/report on the results? They are meaningless when it's the electoral count that matters. The press did the same thing when reporting on how many states Obama and Clinton had in the primaries when it was the delegate count that mattered. Electoral counts and delegate counts are not particularly complex concepts yet the media prefers to report these meaningless poll results. That Obama or McCain are trading leads of a few percentage points in national polling tell us nothing with regard to who leads in the state by state count of electoral votes.

The following are two equally informative reports on the presidential campaign.

"As the presidential race enters it's final weeks, Obama leads in national polls by 2 percentage points."

"As the presidential race enters it's final weeks, the Sand Diego Chargers beat the New York Jets 48-29."