Olbermann may have the best understanding of how to read the polls of any of the TV/Cable media hosts:
From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/
"The polls continue to bounce around like Rubber Man on a pogo stick during a hurricane, but here in Los Angeles this week I finally got some professional guidance on how to read them. Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC's senior political analyst and the man in charge of political verisimilitude for "The West Wing," guested on Countdown Monday and finally divulged the secret code.
They vary largely because of each pollster's definition of what a "likely voter" is (that, I knew), but O'Donnell says you can discount that variable in any election - from president to dog-catcher - in which an incumbent is facing a challenger. Historically, he says, the incumbent's numbers in the last few weeks provide a startlingly accurate set of tea leaves as to his actual numbers on election day.
The simple equation is this: barring the unforeseen, the incumbent's numbers don't usually surge late, and the undecideds tend to go almost unanimously for the challenger. As it applies to this election, there are a lot of people rooting for George Bush, still giving him the benefit of any doubt - but reluctantly moving towards voting for his opponent.
Moreover, the President's poll ratings have not gotten into a consistently safe range. He's topped 50 in several, but in what was the most reliable in 2000, the Zogby poll (now for Reuters News), they're still Bush 45/Kerry 45 as of Wednesday's tracking. Zogby himself wrote, months ago, that the election was Kerry's to lose, and he has stuck by that analysis, noting just as O'Donnell did that the undecideds "break" away from the incumbent, time and time again.
That would make Mr. Bush the New York Yankees in the sports equation, and Kerry the Red Sox who manage to win four straight games while at death's door."
And he goes on to say:
"Wish I could read the message in the Bush-Cheney campaign's tactics on terror. Here's Vice President Cheney doing everything but picking the cities likeliest to be hit by a terrorist nuke, while at the same time, the person who's presumably the best security mind in the government, National Security Advisor Rice, is out of her office to make a nine-speech tour of the swing states. I guess things look bleak, but not enough to keep Condi in a secure, undisclosed location."
Must be lonely over at MSGOP for Olbermann and Reagan.