pollery wonkery

For what it's worth, the state polls seem to agree that the US presidential race is teetering on an incredible knife-edge, with Kerry possibly slightly ahead unless you are the Washington Post, and if the election were held today and followed the polls, the whole thing might well rest 2000-style on the usual residue of random luck and dirty tricks, only this time in Florida and Ohio. Not that the results ever track the polls quite that closely (Democratic optimists say that undecideds traditionally break late toward the challenger in an election like this one, but it remains to be seen how typical this election is). It's another nail-biter, folks, and only time will tell how big.

But Bush's big public-goodwill surge, that began while he had a spending-cap advantage over Kerry and continued through his remarkably large convention bounce, seems to be over. I honestly didn't expect that.