McCain seemed on life support before Super Tuesday, but he staggered onward to victory (presumptive GOP nomination) as the “survivor” candidate. I don't believe he can rely on this to win in November, though. It's an anti-GOP year. There is no enthusiasm behind McCain and the GOP; Obama-mania is well known.

http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_Pres08...

http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_Pres08...

http://people-press.org/report/436/obama-mccain...

I fully agree.

Polls have long been a problem for conservatives as they tend to underreport the conservative vote. Rove played an important role for the GOP in 2004 in getting the message out to keep up morale as poll after poll showed Kerry leading.

Look, for example, at Slate's running aggregator polling map of the United States for 2004 in the months before the election . . . consistently showing a Kerry victory . . . with the gap narrowing as the election grew imminent (just as Rove predicted).

Problem is, McCain does not have a figure like Rove . . . with the reputation to support campaign morale in the face of the polling and MSM drumbeat for a Democratic victory. Rove's reputation as an evil genius was such that even the liberal MSM … loving the Kerry double-digit advantage at one point . . . would hesitate in denouncing the possibility of a Bush win as daydreaming.

Thus, I agree…these polls are worth a bucket of warm spit. But their impact upon morale can be significant.

Obama's team has its act together, and I suspect it is capable of withstanding polling damage. McCain's team seems on life support…and is clinging to yesterday's outlier.

But, in addition to being useless, I think poll results are like political commentary and can actually affect voting results. .
People are gullible and are much affected by what others think. Controlled experiments have shown that. In a sense, then, polls are meddling with their subjects by creating the impression that they know exactly what most people think.