What a great weekend. Polls staying strong. I gave a donation to the Obama campaign that another donor matched, then saw the stunning fundraising totals from September.

And did I mention that I cast an early ballot yesterday for the next President of the United States, Barack Obama?

Woot! Back above where we were yesterday (although I realize that's not significant, statistically-speaking). Today is a great day!

I don't like this poll tightning. But hey! a win is a win even if by just 1 point.

Unless Gallup is palining us.

http://www.236.com/video/2008/palining_9460.php

Even if this is pretty much within the margin of error, let's hope it's a trajectory.

We also need to keep in mind the number of early voters. When people are polled, do they just poll those who have not yet voted? If so, then the early voters, as we know, are breaking very, very heavily for Barack. If the polls are now only looking at people who haven't yet voted, then that would skew the result. Then it would look like there are fewer for Obama... since they've already voted.

Does anyone know if these polls are taking early voting into account? And if so, how?

At this stage of the proceedings, the composite polling measure is Sam Wang's meta-margin - the median of state polls via Pollster.com run through his model

As of October 19, 12:00PM EDT: Obama: 367 McCain: 171

Nazi Limbaugh is already underway to "prove" Powel's endorsement as "racist." In his email to Politico, he wrote, "Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race. I'm now researching his [Powel'] past endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal, white candidates he has endorsed. I'll let you know what I come up with."
As for Powell's concern regarding Supreme Court justices McCain, given he wins, might appoint, Limbpoop wrote: "I was also unaware of his dislike for John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia. I guess he also regrets Reagan and Bush making him a four-star [General] and Secretary of State and appointing his son to head the FCC. Yes, let's hear it for transformational figures."

Anyone watching GPS on CNN. Fareed Zakaria is one of the best host on any political show. He is brilliant, and always provide what I consider a very good journalist...

And to my suprise!!!

Fareed Zakaria just endorsed Barak Obama.

II like the way he said:

McWar is a man of the past. Obama is the future:)

Why are the polls weighted by the square root of sample size, rather than just sample size?

Doesn't that give the ones with smaller samples too much weight?

Powell lost me with his silence about the war, but he is still an international figure.

His endorsement was prominently featured in the evening news here in France.

O Dear, a few hours late and didn't I miss the party. This is a juggernaut Sunday.

Holy Fuck- 150 mil
Holy Shit- Powell endorsement
Holy Moly- Polls look strong.

The margin will go up to 20% once people hear
about the letter now up on Neil Young's website:

http://www.neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/index.html

McMajorShit is about to get another rocket up his ass.

I was outside Good Samaritan Hospital in L.A. when the end came. A year later I was in the 4th Inf. in Vietnam. And I was there in that small group of people at the Long Beach Airport who stayed behind following George McGovern's last campaign stop in '72. We waited forty five minutes so the plane could be fixed and he could fly home to South Dakota. Yeah, the little group that Timothy Crouse mentioned in his book about the press coverage of the campaign.

I'm going to remember this day till I die, along with November 4th and January 20th.

I am NOT buying Josh Marshall's don't-be-so-sure meme.

Obama's going to win...take that to the bank

But I am making MyBo neighbor to neighbor calls because I come not to praise McPalin but to BURY THEM

When you're opponent is drowning, throw him an anvil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oaj0CN72qA

I wanna take a minute or to
To give much respect to
The man who's gonna make a difference in our lives

He's a real smooth brother, never in a rush
And he gives me goose pimples with every single touch..
Spends quality time with his kids when he can
Secure in his Patriotism cuz he's a real American
A lover and a fighter and he'll knock a knucker out
Dont take him for a SUCKER cuz that's not what he's about
Every time we need him, he's always got our back
Never disrespectful cuz his mama taught him that...

We got a good man!

Sorry yall, I just had to let that out!!!

I don't get emotional easily.

But this picture, without anymore prompt, blurred my vision with tears. Courtesy: DailyKos.

http://s85.photobucket.com/albums/k76/eridees/?action=view¤t=kareem.jpg

A little jealous? McCain is now saying there's funny business in Obama's fundraising numbers for September and there's scandal a-brewin'.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081019/pl_politico/14719

Polls are only as good as the subject matter they are measuring. So while election day is weeks away, people being polled can freely talk about issues and candidates they feel are important because they're not being asked to make a permanent decision at that moment.

Since polls are a measure of people's intentions, it's more psychological than scientific. So with the voting process in the hands of human nature, it should be obvious to the most casual observer that there will be quite a large number of people standing in front of the voting machine torn about which candidate to cast their ballot for.

What people say while they have the luxury of time is one thing because they're not being held accountable for their answer. But what they actually do when time has run out and they have to commit to a final decision can be counter to what they've said when polled. Seems some people hate the idea of voting for someone who may loose, so they hedge their bets and vote to be on the winning side - which ever side that may be.

The only way to accurately confirm if polling data is a true measure of voter intent will be once the voting is done and the results are tabulated.

I've suffered thru a college level stats class and understand the process, but I disagree with the accuracy because human emotions are not easily quantifiable. They can skew the results in ways unimaginable.

I'm just downright pissed off at McLame over this continued crapola about how Obama's fund raising somehow leads to scandal.

I would love to be able to tell McLame directly that Obama's campaign has been funded by America. Cause that's the truth - America has funded Obama's campaign because America wants Obama to be the president.

It's just that simple, John. It is really insulting, as an Obama supporter, to be accused of impropriety for donating money in amounts too small to put a name on them. AS it happens, you can trace my donations and my husband's, McLame. Why don't you and your people take a look at the donors sometime. There are actually people living out here in America, McLame, in places other than those pro-America pockets of inbred redneck morons, which seems to be all you're spending time around lately.

I don't know whether you paid attention or not, this morning Andrea Mitchell at MTP said Obama has bought up all the remaining time/spots for ads in the major television networks, leaving no room for McLame to buy another spot, even if he has any money left (In her words, "Networks will have to make some kind of equal time decisions to get him on"). If this is true, this is a good news.
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In a passing note, when I watched today's MTP 2nd time, I found Brokaw to be a racist at the deep recesses of his heart (Brokaw: "John Lewis compared McCain with Wallace...Do you think Lewis' comment will turn off white voters from voting a black man at the booth?").

Andrea Mitchell was doing some serious tire-swinging on MTP today. I swear, every time I start to believe she's not a whore, there she is on the corner...

Early voted in Albuquerque Saturday afternoon - they said they had very heavy turnout earlier in the day. While busy at my location, it took longer to vote than waiting to be validated/ballot retrieved/etc. (Dang initiatives and bond questions!)

While I was out running errands and voting, someone stopped by the house and left a flyer from Team Obama reminding us to vote early. Nice work. Aside from robocalls, have had nothing from the Republicans. Ok, perhaps that's less than nothing but still.

This is huge and as usual ideal timing. Powell is as respected and liked as any military leader I have ever known. Troops still look up to him today including a certain new CENTCOM CC. I can tell you this has some die hards out here in the sands at a loss...one of the few occasions it is fun to be an Obama fan deployed :)

I was in the ROK between 05 and 07 at Osan wasnt a bad gig

Night shift here again.

Tinklinberg's take on ActBlue alone is, at 05:53 Eastern time, $275,478. Can we doubt he'll break $300,000 on ActBlue today, maybe before lunch time? http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/18660

I gather he's taken in something of that same order *again,* via other channels such as his own site, since Bachmann's statement of "concern."

Wow. Hope he can put that cash to good use; it would be a shame to bury her in well-financed campaign work only to have the looney witch somehow beat him out. He's got to be clever how he uses this money; her message is going to be that the contributors are connected to Bin Laden, etc. Her site right now has nothing about all this, though, as though it were another quiet day in Minnesota's 6th District. Her campaign staff should have an interesting Monday!