True...but he's down 3 points with "West Virginian Appalation Blue Collar Dance with Snakes at Church goers who are at least 75% certain he's the antichrist" (+ or - 5% margin of error)

Hilarious. From Nagourney's botched attempt at analyzing poll data, to this. The Times is clearly poll-challenged.

If ever there were any doubt that the press lived in a bubble-world, this would end it. That whole "Barack Obama has a problem" thinking has infected everyone even at the NYTimes.

http://strategy08.wordpress.com

One of the reasons I hate it when supporters go ballistic over every little burst of statistical noise is that it reinforces a feedback loop with the MSM. The MSM says there's a problem, the 2000/2004 trauma victims get all kerfluffled, the MSM takes note of the kerfluffle and says "even the Senator's supporters acknowledge there's a problem," the trauma victims read that and feel validated in their concern and say "see, the MSM knows we're right," and so on and so on and so on.

Even more maddening, The MSM pays a lot of attention to the tone and atmospherics of comments in left of center blogs in places like TPM and Kos but completely ignores the vileness that is the norm in the comments of the wingnut blogs.

Well, it is spite girl Kit Seelye. But hey, this is just another example of the need for political reporters covering the contest to maintain the appearance of a tight race in flux -- otherwise, what kind of a story do they have, and why should prestige outlets like The Times pay good money to fly them around when they're barely getting any kind of access to the candidates anymore? "Obama continues to maintain modest lead," Timesian as it may sound, just isn't much of a headline.

The press is starting to piss me off...

I am not surprise; by the way I have not read the article. Who wrote the article? Is it Adam Nargohney or Kate S.? If it is either one of them, then I won't be worried. The two journalists are scum bag and i don't even read anything they publish because it is irrelevant.

I have been suggesting Greg look at the NYT fixation of selective reporting on polls since he was named as a particiapnt in the infamous treatment of a FAMOUS NYT REPORTER by the Obama campaign. According to the New Republic a Mr. Nagourney of the Times was treated in an unfair manner because he received an e-mail from Sargent asking for comment on data the Obama campaign issued indicating the Times article on Obama's failure to close the centuries old racial divide could be discerned in Times polling data. Mr. Nagourney flet he was a "big boy" and should have been contacted before others. Is Ms Seelye's article more payback? She developed quite a reputation for trashing Gore in 2000. Please clear this up Greg.

One of the headline stories at cnn.com under the politics section yesterday was titled "Obama's uphill polling battle"

When you read the article the first paragraph is:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The race between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama is extremely tight, according to the latest CNN "Poll of Polls." Just five points separate the two candidates -- Obama's 48 percent to McCain's 43 percent, with 9 percent undecided. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/06/obama.polls/index.html

I guess the point of the article is this meme that Obama is underperforming and that a Democrat should be destroying a Republican this year. But how exactly do you say OBAMA has an uphill polling battle when he's consistently leading all polls and leading in the important electoral state polls in places like Colorado, Ohio, Michigan, Virgina, Iowa. This is the same lazy reporting that generates articles with the theme that Obama has a problem with Hispanic and women voters even while noting that he has 2:1 leads in the polls with these groups.

I have been reluctant to buy into the idea that the media is working over time to try to make this election appear to be closer than it is to benefit their ratings and their coverage, but I'm starting to think that maybe there is something to it. I'm not saying Obama is a lock to win, I'm just saying you have to be smoking crack to write that Obama currently has the uphill polling battle. McCain has to start taking the lead in VA, OH, CO, IA, NH, NM. The polling, and electoral map, are a bigger uphill battle for McCain and any objective report would note that.

Frog Appendage, this is not irrelevant. Gerg was named as "the other reporter" by the New Republic in an effort to explain how Obama's people are not honoring the "big boyhood" of the Times. I want to know how all this is related. West Virginia, after all, was invoked earlier and relations there are important.

Yes it is bizarre! Also bizarre that Lanny Davis trots out the same message on the Ed Schultz show yesterday? What a bizarre and unconnected world we live in.

I should have said HRC as VP would help accomplish that.

Dr. Wang's Meta-Analysis of state polls, updated with RSS feed to his computer model instanter

Doesn't show much of an EV contest either...

Obama 309
McCain 229

Broken, that was hysterical. It should be on a t-shirt handed out free to all attendees at some Obama event very soon. Something big, maybe even the convention, or on a beach in Hawaii, that the MSM has to cover. MAYBE that will finally get the point across!

Sounds like they're struggling to maintain the notion that this is neck-and-neck. Less drama, fewer sales. Ah, corporate media.

Maybe this is nitpicking, but why is it "Mr." Obama vs "Senator" McCain?

yep, it's a dead heat

Obama is competitive in Mississippi, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, Kansas, Colorado, Iowa, and Kansas

and mcsame isn't competitive in a single "Blue State"

every single repuglitard senate race is close, and only ONE Democratic Senator is in a close race

yep, it's a dead heat

mcsame is makin this race close

ROTFLMAO

Perhaps the New York Times was referring to how much money Obama shells out per percentage point in the polls as compared to McCain. Isn't McCain ahead in Florida with a fraction of Obama's outlay? Of course, each citizen has her or his own idea of how much Democracy should depend on an ad campaign. We were marketed a president for the last two elections. Why not "buy" Obama?

Adam Nagourney can bite my shiny metal ass.

I'll post this position again later in a more active thread, but here: While this article is strange, I'm a bit baffled why other Obama supporters aren't more worried about the poll numbers that have come out. If memory serves, the exit polls in Ohio showed a sizeable Kerry victory, which was explained after the fact by the "social desirability effect" - i.e. people felt more comfortable saying Kerry when asked in the open, but in the privacy of the booth many punched the other name. Now, what's the likely impact of this (pretty well-established) psychological mechanism on polls between a young, comparatively unfamiliar black man and a well-known white geezer?

Personally, anything showing less than a 4-point lead for Obama looks to me like a McCain victory. Unfortunately, the media reads Obama's numbers as evidence that he's running away with it(save for some recent polls and their interpretations), and accordingly gives McCain comically favorable coverage to try and keep the election story alive; but if the social desirability effect is rearing its head here, this has been tight race the whole time through, possibly with McCain taking a decent lead at the moment. So put me in the camp that's frightened by these numbers, hates the MSM, and wonders if Obama's 50-state strategy isn't wildly overoptimistic given a more cautious interpretation of his previous poll leads.