Does it strike anyone as rather odd that, once a few state by state polls come out showing reasonable numbers, suddenly a flood of very unreasonable polls come out (seemingly disconnected from reality?).
I don't know if this is a documented phenomena, or has been discussed here before, but my bet is the republicans are gaming not just the "who's in the lead" issue, but also those electoral projection sites that average recent poll results to project a state's electoral vote final results.
We know Rove plays the expectations game of "inevitability." How's he gonna do that when the nation wide polls show a close race? He'll screw with the state-by-state polls! But just having one outlying poll isn't enough. Most of these polls are small and infrequent, so a number of sites average the latest state polls to get a sense of where the race is on an electoral vote basis.
I refer you to Race 2004 a seemingly reasonable or even Democratic electoral vote tabulator.
http://www.race2004.net/
In their most recent entry, despite the recent respected polls showing Kerry with some nice strength, the Race 2004 folks have Kerry getting hosed. Their methodology is honest, open, and simply averages the most recent polls. Well, they do a great job and they show all the other weaknesses of democrats:they're objective, honest, and open and this leaves them open for manipulation.
Look at their Wisconsin numbers
http://www.race2004.net/states.php?state=wi
Recent ARG, Zogby and even Gallup numbers in WI seem reasonable and have the race either tied or within 2 points. Then along comes TNS and Badger polls showing Bush with 10 and even 14 point leads. Clearly, some one is gaming these numbers to up the average and keep WI in play, or even weak Bush--my guess is these mysterious pollsters don't care what reality is, the only reason to have polls this far out of line is to screw with sites that average poll results. (I think Race 2004 does so across the last five polls). So the repubs need HIGH numbers to screw with the average.
AND the polling dates for these wacko polls are all LATER than the more reasonable polls thereby displacing those polls from the averages (ARG is dropping off the poll averages soon, even though the poll was only released a day or two ago).. Badger hadn't done a poll in WI since June, and TNS not at all, yet suddenly these guys come in from left field with wild numbers and drive reasonable poll numbers out of sight.
Mason Dixon has done this in several states. (See AZ). Gallup is all over the place (See NV for one). And I no longer trust their polls. But they're nation wide, and even some of their polls seem reasaonble. (I bet they have to keep it that way so they don't look like complete asses).
But where Gallup and Mason-Dixon (of SUSA for that matter) can't get Bush a big enough lead, these small, infrequent, sometimes unknown polls come out of left field (like specialty hits) to screw with poll averages on a state by state basis. This has happend in NM with some outfit called Ciruli, Iowa with a group called Moore, Ohio has the Ohio Poll. Nevada has Ciruli (with a 12 point lead for Bush--where'd that come from?). I'm sure there are others.
So these small wacko outfits, that have no reputation to lose create these huge numbers to screw with poll averages. I would hope we, and the SCLM, and the electoral vote projection folks will learn to ignore them.
I will note in passing that Republican sites like Real Clear politics seem to ignore inconvenient polls.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls.html
Is there an economist poll on there, anywhere? (Doesn't matter so much now that the "huge" leads for bush have disappeared and all the nationwide polls are trying to reclaims their respectability by showing a horse race.)
But I urge everyone to do a few things 1) If you're depressed, count electoral votes on your own based upon your feel of how a state is trending, 2) IGNORE outlying state polls from infrequent, or unknown pollsters, 3) you might try investigating the outfits that do these "hit" polls. My guess is you'll find some interesting names behind them.
So buck up. People only have to game expectations like this when they're losing the race. Take heart that the Republicans feel enough heat to start out right cheating. You knew it was gonna happen. It's better they discredit themselves today, than make it to the race with their "myth" in tact.
Remember, Myth creates power, which brings Value, which creates more Myth. And a "4" to the first person to correctly sounce that reference.