“The worst thing to happen to journalism in 20 years.”

That’s how Obama’s communications director, Dan Pfieffer, described the Gallup Daily tracking poll when discussing the campaign’s polling strategy. I think he’s being a little hyperbolic—but only because several bad things have happened to journalism and it isn’t fair to give the Gallup Daily all the credit.

He’s right to point out that there’s too much focus (from pundits and journalists in particular) on snapshot polls without taking into account statistical noise and the fact that the election isn’t going to be decided by a national popular vote. Occasionally citing the Gallup Daily is fine, as long as you include caveats about its accuracy and are not trying to use the results to completely explain the effectiveness of various campaign strategies.

Pfieffer and David Plouffe offered a little behind-the-scenes glimpse of how the Obama campaign handles polling. Marc Ambinder has the details:

“All we care about is these 18 states,” he said. He repeated, with emphasis, that the campaign does not care about national polling. Instead, the campaign’s own identification, registration and canvassing efforts provide the data he uses to determine where to invest money and resources.

Other nuggets from Plouffe:

** If McCain doesn’t win Colorado, “he has a 5% chance to win the election.”

** He believes that they have “a slight edge” in Virginia.

** He said Obama is underperforming only among working class whites over 70 and pointed to a poll showing that Obama is over performing John Kerry with working class white voters under 50.

** Said that the campaign’s target in Georgia is about 47% of the vote, owing to Ex-Rep. Bob Barr’s ability to siphon votes away from John McCain.

** Said Hillary Clinton’s speech “could not have gone better.”

** Said the campaign “is really pleased” with where they are in Montana.

One of the more significant differences between the Obama and Clinton campaigns was their understanding of the delegate allocation process and the strategies they developed as a result. Plouffe’s team has already demonstrated a knack for numbers-crunching during the primaries, and I’ll remain convinced that they know what they’re doing (despite a slight drop in national polls) until they prove me wrong.