Purleeeeze stop showing the polls all the time. They're casino, just like Wallstreet.

That was North Dakota, Steve.

Obama pulled his staff from North Dakota, not South Dakota.

I think you mean North Dakota.

Bounds refused to give a straight answer.

Isn't it illegal to discuss cabinet picks before the election? Of course, that shouldn't prevent anyone from saying who won't be on the cabinet.

Dem Senators counterproposal for bailout:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080922/ts_nm/financial_bailout_congress_dc
Senate Democrats want pay limits, equity in bailout

Am still reading it...

The confederacy lives on.

Ohio is a surprise though... I thought it was a 'free state'.

I agree with others. The polls are not interesting to read. Not to mention, I think we can all agree that they don't account for a lot of voters, who don't have landlines.

people who want to check the numbers can just visit: fivethirtyeight.com

McCain by 6 in Ohio? Obama by only 1 in Michigan? Those numbers are worse than a week ago. What gives?

Al Franken admits he's a comedian, but his opponent, Norm Coleman, says the government could make a huge profit from the bail out - in fact, 10-20 times its cost. Now that's rich.

McCain by 6 in Ohio? Obama by only 1 in Michigan? Those numbers are worse than a week ago. What gives?

I don't know about the Michigan poll, but the Ohio poll was conducted between September 12th and 16th, so these numbers are already fairly old (the Columbus Dispatch was reporting on this same poll last Thursday, I think).

That said, expect Ohio to suck. A lot. We're full of stupid racist crackers here and I'm hearing smatterings of "can't vote for a black man" any time I venture outside the major cities. I'm hoping that the influx of students from all over the country to OSU will help with the votes in November, but we won't know that for a few weeks.

http://www.pbs.org:80/now/polls/poll-435.html PBS is doing a poll - Do you think Sara Palin is qualified to be VP?

Juan Cole accurately describes the paradox that is this current presidential election.

Seems the majority of white folks would rather have a dangerously incompetent white man than a very competent black man. From Mother Jones:

AP Poll: Obama Loses 6 Points Due to Race
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/09/9830_ap_poll_obama_loses_six_percent_due_to_race.html

Polling has its place but I share people's uncertainty about how valid it is given the differences in sampling size, demographics, etc.

It might be better to do a running tally of how many electoral votes a candidate could expect if the election was held on any given day instead. That would be a more significant and easily digestible number for a lot of people (me, for one) even though it would certainly have to be based on current polling results anyway.

Once more for the Republican-impaired like Joanne:

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not the *cause* of this disaster. For some reason they worked fine as private corporations for over 30 years without issue, including 8 years with Bill Clinton in office.

Again, please correct - you meant North Dakota. Each state deserves its own respect.

as someone who lives in Maine, I'll walk with my head held a little higher today.