With regards to polling, this year’s GE is fluid.

Republican turnout in 2006 was lower than expected due to dissatisfaction with how the Republicans were governing. Alot of R’s voted for the blue dog Democrats for a number of reasons. The polling firms are using this data as part of the methodology for determining the party weightings for the polls. This year, I expect that the R base will turn out in great numbers for two reasons:, Obama, who they fear, and Palin, who they love.

The Bradley effect. I expect it’s about 2%-3%.

The Palin effect. This might be classified as a “reverse Bradley.” People say they hate Palin, but actually support her. See my next reason for why.

“Get in people’s faces.” Obama challenged his supporters to do this. As a result, people will say that they haven’t made up their minds, or will say Obama to avoid a confrontation. Basically, people are lying to the pollsters.

People don’t have the time to take the polls, or don’t want to. The ones who do are politically motivated, and tend to be more liberal.

Joe the plumber. People are pissed about what happened to the guy. They know what’s in store for them.

The fawning of the media. This will also cause a backlash.

The PUMA’s. Even women who didn’t support Hillary don’t like the way that Palin has been treated. They can see things clearly.

The grey panthers. Older people vote more often than younger ones.

How were the questions in the poll worded? I can make a poll give me any result that I want. The polling during the democratic primaries consistently over-sampled Obama supporters.

ACORN and Voter fraud.

There are other reasons, but this is a good list to start. Does this mean that McCain is leading or the election of Obama is a given? Nope. Just that the polls have never been as accurate as they claim.

Right after the primaries a Republican analysts said that McCain only needed 10% of democrats to win. McCain has never lost those 23% PUMA voters who stated publicly that they will vote for him. Another 22% said that will abstain from voting for the president. How many of those have moved to actually say ‘screw this, I’m going to make sure the OBO is NOT the president.’

Based on these assumptions, and barring massive ballot stuffing by ACORN, it should be a McCalin landslide.

There are more Democrats than Republicans so the statistics have to be weighted to compensate for the registered Democrats (meaning that Democrat votes will be weighted in the favor of a Democrat candidate). Given that so many Hillary supporters are now supporting McCain, the assumed weighting may be throwing off the statistics/polls.

If McCain pulls this election off, he can thank Donna Brazile for telling Hillary supporters to JUST STAY HOME!

Go PUMAs!!!

Anyone ever stop to thing that maybe the reason the polls are tightening in this last week is because they were never accurate to begin with and the media needs to start preparing for both possibilities on Nov 4? One being a McCain win and the 2nd (God-forbid) be a Hitler2 win?

There are two things they know for sure that they don’t know – how many Hillary democrats are voting McCain and what is going to happen with the women vote with Palin on the ticket. One would think this combination alone would swing the win to McCain.

Another reason is now they have to think about their credibilty and accuracy in actually predicting the winner.

PUMA votes are an unknown. How many and where are they concentrated? Spread out over 50 states or heavy in the battlegrounds? Another factot mentioned one pundit… is there a “reverse Palin effect?” (people who will vote for Palin but won’t say so publicly)

COUNTRY FIRST,POLITICAL PARTIES LAST

MC CAIN/PALIN 2008