I’m not foolish enough to think this this is how the final result will come out, but I find it astonishing that the election has gotten so far away from John McCain:
Over all, the poll found that if the election were held today, 53 percent of those determined to be probable voters said that they would vote for Mr. Obama and 39 percent said they would vote for Mr. McCain.
Later, the article clarifies that if you factor in Nader and Barr, Obama’s percentage goes down to 51%. I also realize that other polls have the race tighter. But still…
I’m convinced that the numbers are even worse for McSame/Mooselini but that the same sort of shenanigans are at play with the polls that were in previous stolen elections. By making it seem as the election could go either way, it provides cover for the lazy, shiftless, incurious and corrupt MSM should it be stolen again. The memes have been planted and the ‘180 rule’ is in play which is blame the other side for those things you commit (FOX Noise complaining about dirty campaigns and vote fraud).
It’s really very difficult to see how Obama will win. This image shows the Bradley Effect in major elections: http://pewresearch.org/assets/publications/408-3.gif
You can see that for all but one of the examples, the white candidate captures all of the previously undecided in the actual votes, and so gains about 10%.
Added to this is the certainty that the Republicans will indulge in their usual minority voter suppression.
So Obama will need approx 55% in the pre-election polls to have any chance. The complacency of Obama supporters is really heartbreaking. The campaign is just coasting along now, believing they have won, where instead they should be mopping up McCain supporters.
@perry: I think that pollsters have learned how to compensate for the “Bradley effect.” Also, remember that election happened in 1982 nearly 30 yrs ago. Times have changed. Yes, there still is racism & there are whites who will never vote for Obama. There may even be whites who say they will & then won’t. But it beggars belief that every undecided voter will break for McCain. I simply don’t believe it.
I heard them talking about the reverse-Bradley effect the other day (BBC radio I think) saying that the pollsters may be missing a considerable number of Obama voters who fall through the cracks of their pollign samples (young people with only cell phone numbers, etc.). I’m more concerned about the “Diebold effect” (hacked voting and other vote irregularities) that I think can also be argued to be a major factor (in NH, Clinton’s numbers seemed to do much better than polled in predominantly electronic voting districts whereas they mirrored the poll numbers more accurately where unverifiable electronic voting was not used).
More Bradley efect info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect