So looking back on our polling obsession about this race, which pollsters actually did the best job of calling this race, comparing the final polls to the actual results?

Taking a look at the national polls, who was correct in predicting Barack Obama at around 52%, and who got the right margin of a six-point popular vote win over John McCain?

Take a look at these final polls:

Rasmussen: Obama 52%, McCain 46%

GWU: Obama 49%, McCain 44%

Research 2000: Obama 51% McCain 46%

Zogby: Obama 54%, McCain 43%

IBD/TIPP: Obama 48%, McCain 42%

ABC/WaPo: Obama 53%, McCain 44%

CBS: Obama 51%, McCain 42%

Fox News: Obama 50%, McCain 43%

Ipsos/McClatchy: Obama 50%, McCain 42%.

Hotline/Diageo: Obama 50%, McCain 45%

Gallup: Obama 53%, McCain 42%

Most of these polls were on target with Obama winning by five to seven points, and quite a few of them had him in the neighborhood of 52% support. The first prize goes to Rasmussen for nailing the 52%-46% figure exactly. Research 2000 is close behind with their 51%-46% figure. Gallup was way off in giving Obama an 11-point win, but they did have Obama's support at just over the true result of 52%. And Zogby also gave Obama an 11-point lead, at a 54% level of support.

Also, the final Pew poll allocated its undecideds based on demographics and answers to key issue questions. Their prediction: Obama 52%, McCain 46%.

The new CBS/New York Times poll has nothing but bad news for John McCain. Barack Obama is ahead 52%-39% among likely voters in the horse-race, but the internals are perhaps even worse.

The poll shows the extent to which McCain's negative campaign has backfired. Obama's favorability rating stands at 52% favorable to 31% unfavorable, way ahead of John McCain's 39%-46% rating. In terms of the candidates' personalities, 62% of registered voters said they felt comfortable with Obama, while only 34% said they feel uneasy about him. The numbers for McCain: 47% comfortable, 49% uneasy.

Obama also has an edge on who is more trusted to handle a crisis, with 49% of registered feeling confident and 47% feeling uneasy about him. McCain is at 46% confident to 51% uneasy.

And this question suggests that McCain's attacks on Obama over income redistribution could be big loser:

Do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea to raise income taxes on households and businesses that make MORE than $250,000 a year in order to help provide health insurance for people who are not covered by health insurance?

Good Idea 62%
Bad Idea 33%

The Democratic National Convention's host panel is falling far short of its fundraising goals, one of the few serious weak spots in Dem fundraising along with the DNC as a whole.

The host committee would need to raise $15 million by Monday in order to reach its goal -- an unlikely occurrence, to say the least.

Although the Democrats have generally done a lot better at fundraising than the Republicans this cycle, the long primary campaign might be taking a toll on one key aspect of party organization: Funding for the convention that will officially nominate the presidential candidate.

The host committee responsible for financing the Denver convention is seriously short of its goal, and would need to raise $15 million by June 16 in order to remain on schedule. By contrast, the GOP's host committee is on track to meet its goals for financing their convention in St. Paul.

While the GOP is having a terrible time raising money for their House and Senate races, portending further Dem gains in Congress, the Republicans are in fact having huge success in another area.

The Republican National Committee has announced that they have $31 million cash-on-hand at the end of March, money that can be used to assist John McCain as well as down-ballot races this Fall.

Quarterly figures aren't available yet for the DNC, but it's likely they'll be way behind -- at the end of February, they only had $4.8 million on hand, with $250,000 in outstanding debts.

This is essentially a tradeoff that comes with Howard Dean's 50-state strategy -- if the DNC's primary mission is to act as a financial and organizational clearinghouse for state parties and candidates, it ends up not raising very much money for itself. We'll find out in the months to come whether the Republicans can successfully exploit this weakness.

Late Update: A DNC source reminds us that the Dems don't have a nominee yet. When that happens, the DNC is confident that the fundraising will pick up significantly.

The race for the Democratic nomination isn't settled yet, but a coalition of outside liberal groups is already gearing up for the general election race. The coalition, made up of groups like MoveOn, the AFL-CIO, the Change to Win labor federation and others will be announcing a $350 million effort for voter mobilization and advocacy this Fall.

Past election cycles have of course seen independent political activities on behalf of a particular side, but this one is being billed as the largest ever single coordinated effort. One potential pitfall: If Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee, he might be put on the spot about this group's activities versus his own policies against outside groups spending on his behalf.

The new Gallup poll shows the national Democratic race might be really tightening — Hillary's lead is down to the single digits. Here are the numbers, compared to their last poll from two days ago:

Clinton 42% (-2)
Obama 36% (+3)
Edwards 12% (-2)

Only a week ago, Hillary was up by 16 points.

We'll find out soon enough what the impact of Edwards' withdrawal will be, and also where the remaining undecideds will end up.

...and ominously, CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who's moderating the debate, just said that the second part of the debate will be free form. Blitzer said it will be basically a freewheeling discussion among the candidates.

We'll see how it goes.

We're blogging the debate right here at Election Central. Stay with us.

The new AP/Ipsos poll has some bad news for Rudy Giuliani: The early losses he's suffered have caused his national numbers to plummet since the last poll from six weeks ago — in fact, his support has fallen by half.

The GOP numbers: McCain 22% (+9), Huckabee 16% (-2), Romney 16% (+4), and Rudy 13% (-13).

The Democratic numbers: Clinton 40% (-5), Obama 33% (+10), Edwards 13% (+1).

The new Hotline/Diageo poll shows the Democratic race to be a close one nationwide, while John McCain has opened up a strong national lead — though the numbers were collected before the Michigan primary, and nobody knows how future primaries will ultimately affect the numbers:

Democrats:
Clinton 38%
Obama 35%
Edwards 15%

Republicans:
McCain 32%
Huckabee 17%
Romney 15%
Giuliani 12%
Thompson 7%

The general election match-ups also show that while any of the Democrats could beat most of the Republicans, Barack Obama is more electable than either Hillary Clinton or John Edwards — and it's not even close. John McCain is the most electable Republican, trouncing Edwards and narrowly edging Clinton, but loses to Obama in a statistical dead heat. Those numbers are available after the jump.

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The new Zogby poll shows the Democratic race to be a statistical dead heat nationally. Hillary Clinton comes in first with 39%, not significantly different from Barack Obama's 38%. John Edwards is way behind at 9%.

On the Republican side, John McCain has a narrow lead of 28% to Mike Huckabee's 23%. In third place was Fred Thompson at 14%, with MItt Romney at 13%. Rudy Giuliani, the former national frontrunner, has only 9%.

The poll was conducted before the Michigan primary, so we cannot know yet what the impact will be of Romney's nine-point victory over McCain.

Two new major polls show national leads for Hillary Clinton and John McCain within their respective parties, though one is definitely more favorable to the frontrunners than the other.

From ABC/The Washington Post, compared to their last poll in early December:

Democrats:
Clinton 42% (-11)
Obama 37% (+14)
Edwards 11% (+1)

Republicans:
McCain 28% (+16)
Huckabee 20% (+1)
Romney 19% (+2)
Giuliani 15% (-10)
Thompson 8% (-6)

The CBS/NYT poll is available after the jump.

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• Last night's debate might have been held in South Carolina, but it was just as much a fight for the votes in Michigan, Mitt Romney's native state and the sight of the next Republican primary. Romney condemned McCain: "I know that there are some people who think, as Senator McCain did — he said, you know, some jobs have left Michigan that are never coming back. I disagree. I’m going to fight for every single job. Michigan, South Carolina, every state in this country."

• McCain responded that he was simply telling the truth — implying that Romney doesn't. "One of the reasons why I won in New Hampshire is because I went there and told them the truth," he said. "And sometimes you have to tell people things they don’t want to hear along with things that they do want to hear." Jobs have gone away that aren't coming back, McCain said, but the government can help the citizens through job training and re-education programs.

• One of the most bizarre moments in this debate, or any other debate for that matter, came when Brit Hume pressed the candidates on whether they agreed with the "passive" response of the Navy ships that were confronted by Iranian speedboats in the Strait of Hormuz — the ships threatened to fire on the Iranians if they did not desist in their approach, rather than immediately fire as Hume would prefer.

• The candidates all stood by the decisions of the captains on those ships, despite Hume's repeated urging that they be stronger. Among the top-tier candidates, only McCain came even close to criticizing Hume, calling it "a bit presumptuous" to judge the captains, who trained for a very long time to reach their positions and are trusted to make those judgments.

• Ron Paul took a harder line, comparing this incident to the Gulf of Tonkin and lambasting hawks who want to start a war over it. "Of course we want caution. But I'm worried about the policy of why we're looking for a justification, now there are no weapons, actually people are looking around a for an excuse to bomb Iran. I mean, we're already, with our CIA, being involved in trying to overthrow that government, and we don't need another war. And this incident should not be thrown out of proportion to the point where we're getting ready to attack Iran over this."

• Mitt Romney then fired at Paul with what was likely a pre-rehearsed applause line: "I think Congressman Paul should not be reading as many Ahmadinejad's press releases."

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The new Gallup poll shows that Mike Huckabee is enjoying his post-Iowa bounce, now taking the lead among Republicans nationwide. Here are the numbers, compared to the last poll in mid-December:

Huckabee 25% (+9)
Giuliani 20% (-7)
McCain 19% (+5)
Thompson 12% (-2)
Romney 9% (-5)

Barack Obama's Iowa bounce isn't just happening in New Hampshire — it's now in the national polling, too. The new Gallup poll shows that he and Hillary Clinton are tied nationwide, after Hillary had previously held big leads throughout 2007. Here are the numbers, compared to the last poll in mid-December:

Obama 33% (+6)
Clinton 33% (-12)
Edwards 20% (+5)

Chris Dodd really got screwed today. First the debate moderator, Des Moines Register editor, Carolyn Washburn, asked Dodd a silly and insulting question about his father:

"Senator Dodd, you write in your book that you still struggle with the memories of when your father, former senator Thomas Dodd, was censured by the Senate in 1967 for alleged misuse of campaign money. How much are you motivated in your run for president by a desire to restore the Dodd family name that was hurt by this censure?"

Really, now. It's hard to know which question is more frivolous, inane and catty, this or the one she asked Biden about race.

And then, to top this off, CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewed Dodd after the debate and asked him about everything except for...Chris Dodd. Well, not quite, but almost. The first three questions Wolf asked Dodd were about the tone of the debate, as if Dodd's a pundit, the Mitchell Report, and the Hillary-Obama drug flap yesterday. Only in the fourth question did Dodd finally get asked about, you know, himself and his policies.

This might have been the debate's best moment. Toward the end came this exchange:

MODERATOR: Senator Obama, you have Bill Clinton's former National Security Adviser, State Department policy director and Navy Secretary among others, advising you. With relatively little foreign policy experience of your own, how will you rely on so many Clinton advisers, and still deliver the kind of break from the past that you're promising voters?

(Laughter)

Obama: You know I am --

Hillary: (Laughing) I want to hear that.

Obama: Well, Hillary, I'm looking forward to you advising me as well. (Laughter)

I'd say that this exchange very neatly captures many of the Campaign 2008's various underlying tensions and absurdities, wouldn't you?

Late Update: Here's video of this moment:

Okay, this is just pathetic. The moderator of the debate, Des Moines Register editor Carolyn Washburn, just asked this question of Joe Biden:

Senator Biden, you and your campaign have had a number of occasions to correct or clarify things you've said relating to race, including your remarks about Senator Obama being, quote, "clean and articulate," your comment about Indians working at 7-11, and recently to the Washington Post in which you spoke about race while describing disparities between schools in Washington, D.C. and Iowa.

Do these gaffes, or misunderstandings, or however you characterize them indicate you're uncomfortable talking about race, or are people just being too sensitive?

Look, this is just absurd. Biden has been forced multiple times to defend this comment about Obama being "clean and articulate." Here's what he said of Obama at the time:

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

Some have pointed out convincingly that if you add a missing comma, Biden very clearly could have meant Obama is "mainstream" and in addition is "articulate and clean." At any rate, asking Biden to answer for this yet again is just a big waste of time.

Thankfully, Obama stepped forth to defend Biden, saying:

"I have absolutely no doubt about what is in his heart and the commitment he's made to racial equality in this country."

Good.

• The transcript for this afternoon's Republican debate in Iowa is available here. Beware: This transcript was clearly done with voice recognition software, and has its fair share of errors.

• The debate — the last GOP event before the Iowa caucus — was in many ways a total bust. It was dull, the candidates were not really put on the spot in tough ways, and moderator Carolyn Washburn, editor of the Des Moines Register, openly said they would avoid high-profile national issues like Iraq and immigration. It's hard to pick out a winner, but there was one surefire loser: Carolyn Washburn.

• The best moment was when Fred Thompson led a candidates' revolt against hand-raising questions, regarding climate change. Thompson refused to do a show of hands, then asked for 30 seconds to give a more detailed answer. When Washburn said no, he stood firm and declared, "Well, then I'm not going to answer it." He then got his 30 seconds.

• John McCain gave the best answer on climate change: "Suppose that climate change is not real and all we do is adopt green technologies which our economy and technology is perfectly capable of, then all we've done is given our kids a cleaner world. But suppose they're [the skeptics] wrong, suppose they're wrong and climate change is real and we've done nothing? What kind of a planet are we going to pass on to the next generation of Americans?"

• Rudy Giuliani defended himself on the Shag Fund story, insisting that none of this information was ever a secret: "All that information was available, and known to people, known six years ago, and I would make sure that government was transparent," he said, then alluding humorously to the scandals surrounding his 2000-2001 divorce. "My government in New York City was so transparent that they knew every single thing I did almost every time I did it."

• Not surprisingly, given his online following, Ron Paul praised the Internet: "The Internet is delightful for finding the information, and if there's a question that I need, ask, you can find it. So I spend a lot of time getting information that was at one time in my life was very difficult to find." On a side note, it's also made it easier for him to get money that was once difficult to find.

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The Republican candidates met last night in Florida for a Spanish-language debate on Univision — minus Tom Tancredo, who considered the debate to be an act of pandering. Of the seven who did show up, they made their pitches to the Latino community, both for their own campaigns and on behalf of the Republican Party, which has been losing a lot of Hispanic votes in light of the recent upsurge in GOP nativism.

"I think some of the rhetoric that many Hispanics hear about illegal immigration makes some of them believe that we are not in favor nor seek the support of Hispanic citizens in this country," said John McCain. "Hispanics are pro-small business, they are pro-life, they are pro-religion, they are pro-less regulation, pro-less spending, pro-military, they're serving in incredible numbers in Iraq as we speak today."

Late Update: The English transcript of the debate is available here.

Mike Huckabee's surge apparently isn't just happening in Iowa — he's moving up nationwide, too. The new Gallup poll has Huck in a three-way tie for second. Rudy Giuliani leads with a 25% plurality, with Huckabee at 16%, Fred Thompson 15%, John McCain 15%, and Mitt Romney 12%. Huckabee has gone up an amazing ten points in the last month.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton still has a national plurality of 39%, but it's down from a 50% high a month ago. Barack Obama has 24%, and John Edwards 15%.

The Democratic field will almost certainly be winnowed to one or two serious candidates and a couple hangers-on before Super Tuesday — and the viewing public will have a chance to see those candidates face off on January 31, five days before the February 5 national primary, in a newly-announced debate.

The debate will be broadcast on CNN, hosted by them plus the Politico, the Los Angeles Times, and the California Democratic Party.

• The official transcript to last night's Republican debate, hosted by CNN and YouTube, is available here.

• CNN made a huge mistake last night, allowing a question from Retired Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr, an openly gay man, and furthermore letting Kerr personally appear to speak to the candidates. However, Kerr is actually a Hillary Clinton supporter, a fact that will likely invite accusations of being a plant. On CNN this morning Kerr denied that he had coordinated his activities with the Clinton campaign, or that he's done any direct work with them other than lending his name as a supporter.

• The Republicans really let each other have it last night, questioning each others' conservative credentials on a wide range of issues. Perhaps the biggest issue of the night was illegal immigration.

• Mitt Romney hit Rudy Giuliani for running a "sanctuary city" for illegal aliens. "And the idea that they reported any illegal alien that committed a crime — how about the fact that the people who are here illegally have violated the law?" Romney said. "They didn't report everybody they found that was here illegally."

• Rudy shot right back at Romney, bringing up the matter of illegals having worked on Romney's own lawn in the past — or "sanctuary mansion" as Rudy called it — via a landscaping firm that Romney had hired. "It just happens you have a special immigration problem that nobody else up here has," Rudy said. "You were employing illegal immigrants. That is a pretty serious thing. They were under your nose."

• Mike Huckabee defended his past proposal to give college scholarships to the children of illegals, saying that "we're not going to punish a child because the parent committed a crime."

• In a very telling moment, Tom Tancredo took some joy from what he was hearing. "I have to tell you, so far, it's been wonderful," he said. "Because all I've heard is people trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo."

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