There's a good article up on Huffington Post regarding the fluctuation in the daily tracking polls, which is largely attributable to random float in the margin of error.  Smoothed out, Gallup's poll reflects a very stable race over the past two months, with Obama holding a steady 3-4 point lead since the beginning of June.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/05 /is-obamas-lead-in-gallup_n_117058.html

 And they don't poll cell phones. McCain and the Gopers are floundering in the deep end of the shit, and that's just fine by me.

it was overblown, we had the Obama campaign, his supporters, and uber-psycho Clinton supporters whining because the republicans were meenies.  If people put as much as an effort writing concern diaries and channeling their frustration by calling or canvassing their neighborhood this party might might be able to lead the nation.

Maybe Sen. Graham was on to something about Americans and whining.

Gee Todd,  

I hate to sound like a nattering nabob of negativity, but you sure don't leave much room for mindless concern here.  If this keeps up much longer the damn place will turn back into some form of constructive discourse.  

Cheers for a diary that didn't make me wonder why the heck I am a democrat.

among women taken by lifetime as well; he still has some work to do with white women but his advantage among minority women is overwhelming.  If Obama wins 54% of women, McCain will need to win at 70% of the white male vote to win the election.

There's some interesting findings in the poll too; the poll indicates that more women would be less likely to vote for McCain if he chose a female as his veep than the number that would be more likely.  But the same principle does not hold for Obama as more women would be more likely to vote for him if a woman were on his ticket than the number that would be less likely to vote for him.  So McCain would be viewed as pandering if a woman veep but Obama would not be viewed in that fashion?  Check out the poll.

Unless LV numbers catch up with RV numbers, I'm not taking these too seriously.  Obama has problems with independents (Rasmussen) or only getting 74% of Democrats (Zogby).

Until Democrats get more excited about Obama, he can't win.  How to generate that excitement?  Put Hillary on the ticket.

See the video on CNN.

Lv models are premature at this time--look back just to 06 and the generic ballots right after Labor Day, when Gallup started leading with their Lv numbers, and their was a 15 point difference from the Rv numbers in the last poll. Their final poll was very close with the Lv but at this stage the Rv numbers were more telling.

A span from -1 to +6 is within even a 3 point margin of error, and most polls are more than that. Likely voter models are likely to skew republican this far out and that may be why their is a particularly sharp difference at this time.

Actually it was the McCain campaign who put Arizona in play.  

Jesus.  You're a REPUBLICAN.  No wonder you're behaving like such a douche.