Eric, Clearly Obama has fallen below the 50% mark. Doesn't this indicate the beginnings of a long torturous slide culminating in the ultimate loss of the general election? Or do ya think BO will claw up and manage to cling to whatever 15 point shred of an advantage he'll have by Nov. 4th?

Greg I think you guys should just stick to Rasmussen and Gallup.

Zogby = He has not got a single thing right in 8 years (President John Kerry, Obama wins CA and PA in Primary, etc.)

DKos = drastically oversamples Dems

Hotline = drastically undersamples Dems

YOWZA! That Gallup poll has my nerves settling again! Sa-weeeeet!

What about the other polls partisan weighting? I know there are more dem RV, but perhaps this weighting is more accurate? Anyone know Hotline's reasoning for the change?

OT but a McCain/Palin hate rally is about to kick off HERE.

Thanks for the explanation of the problem with the hotline poll. Do they give any reason for their party affiliation numbers?

I was looking at state polls a while ago. The only "battleground state" giving Obama any real trouble is Indiana. The election could be a landslide of giant proportions. It might even be outside Diabold range.

This warms my heart. In the Research 2000 poll, Palin is at minus 14 in net favorability, her all-time low -- and down 4 points since the VP debate.

Biden is +26, up 7 points since the VP debate.

Hey Pat Buchanan, want to explain again how she wiped the floor with Joe?

What the hell is the use of a tracking poll if they keep rejiggering the party IDs so that one day's numbers aren't comparable to the next's? How is that "tracking"?

Pat Buchanan was for his opinions before he was against them. He jumped up and wet his pants calling Palin a clear winner in last week's debate. After the insta-polls came in overwhelmingly for Biden and Maddow and Olbermann wore him down Buchanan claimed it was a minor victory or something like that.

Zogby... hahaha!!, drop it.

Hotline... Looks like they are moving back to D+5 so I suspect tomorrow should look better for the big O. A good JM is going to fall off tonight I believe.

The National Journal reports that the polling shows a tightening of the race because voters aren't convinced Obama can handle the economy:

The fat lady isn't singing, at least not until she trusts Barack Obama's economic stewardship.

Three polls released so far this week show the race has tightened over the last few days. Obama still leads John McCain in virtually every national survey, but his cushion is shrinking. Tuesday's Hotline/Diageo daily tracker poll gives Obama a 2-percentage-point lead. A Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll also out Tuesday pegs the Illinois senator's advantage at 3 points. And a CBS News poll [PDF] released Monday gives Obama a 3-point advantage among likely voters.

There are plenty of polls out this week still showing a big Obama advantage, such as the Gallup Daily tracker, which shows the Democrat with a 9-point lead, and Rasmussen's horse-race poll, staking him an 8-point advantage. But there are other numbers buried in the data that don't portend well for Obama.

Obama's advantage over McCain on economic stewardship has been inching downwards in recent days, and Tuesday's Hotline/Diageo poll shows the two candidates tied at 42 percent over who would best handle the economy. That advantage was 9 points for Obama as recently as Oct. 3.

McCain's gains may have less to do with any policy proposal by the Arizona senator than with Obama's inability to convince voters he can run the economy.

I realize that Hotline has modified its party identification mix but presumably they had some data to back this up. can anyone enlighten us here on this?

I have never been one to think this would be a ten point race even with the economy tanking. at best, the ultimate vote would be a 53-47 Obama win. so are we seeing only numbers that reflect a different weighting based on party mix and if so, why the change? are we seeing the inevitable tightening of the race and, if so, isn't this a little early to occur? or are we really seeing voter concern about Obama's ability to address the issue and, again if so, is this really a "cloak" for racism?

Zogby hasn't been correct about anything in recent history. Why is it still around?

Ditto!

Decline in numbers due to smear/lies?

Zogby - Meh!

Hotline - OK until they switched their party ID to a ridiculous +2 Dem.

R2K - Oversamples Dems a bit but I like that Markos posts the full internals and the individual results for each day. Don't get that from the others.

GWU/Battleground - Much better since they changed their weighting model. Remember when they had McCain +2 just about a week and half ago?

Gallup - I don't think they weight for party ID. And they seem to often fall vicitim to short-term surges, probably as a result of their weighting problem. Remember when they had Obama +9 during his Europe trip and it swung back to a tie in less than a week?

Rasmussen - He's a wingnut but his daily tracker is the one I trust the most. We can't see his internal data (at least not without a subscription) but his party ID weighting seems pretty close to reality (Dems +6), he adjusts it weekly, and he has a pretty big sample size with a relatively small MoE. One thing I've noticed during this entire cycle - his poll is the most stable - it's not as susceptible to the event-driven swings. It does take them into account if they have a lasting effect, but it shifts gradually, not like Gallup.

If Rasmussen starts to dip below +4 Obama for any length of time, then I'll start to worry. But as long as he's showing +4 Obama or higher - especially if Obama is at 50 or higher - I'll sleep pretty well at night.

Just wait, the Ayers thing isn't working...next week the 527s will start the racism.

We'll see if it will be enough. Desperation sets in.
GoBama: http://fiturl.com/0jN

The Intrade swing today is the largest I've seen yet. An 11.5 gain for the big O.