The national daily tracking polls have tightened just a bit. One of the questions is where is the tightening occuring. One possible answer, if correct, is fatal for the McCain campaign
Polls in the past week have indicated a slight tightening of the national polls. Some have argued that the tightening is not occuring in battle ground states. This seems somewhat correct, but seems to fail to account for some minor (very minor) fluctuations in those states. Some of the battle grounds swing slightly to McCain while other swing slightly to Obama. I have been trying to determine the pattern to these minor swings.
It appears to me that the swing is primarily determined by the presence of McCain campaign stops in states. Unfortunately for McCain, the relationship is an inverse one. In other words, when McCain campaigns in a state, his polling numbers seem to decrease while Obama's hold even or marginally increase.
The three best examples of this are in Florida, Colorado, and North Carolina. For instance, McCain had a major campaign stops in Florida on October 23 and Colorado on October 24. Interestingly, the pollster.com trend map for each state moved AGAINST McCain in the days immediately following those visits.
To the extent that the race is tightening on a national level, I would suggest that it is because people are forgetting who John McCain is. People have forgotten, to an extent, about his performances in the debates. Only when he is in a state are people most directly reminded of his style and campaign. Local news stations and local newspapers are filled with coverage after a presidentail campaign visit. The longer local stories (with less editing and reflecting more of McCain's facial expressions and bizarre uses of humor) seem to be quite unsettling.
The ironic conclusion to be drawn is that the most effective campaign for McCain would be to avoid campaigning, particularly in the battle ground states.
So, the reason McCain