There has been a lot of hand wringing, and a few I told you so's about Obama's latest poll numbers and the apparent tightening of the race. Everybody is wondering why, in what would appear to be a very favorable year for the Democrats is it tight at all. Bush's favorably ratings are at around 30%, an unpopular war, high oil  prices and a rotten economy. I mean this should be a cake walk, right?

Well maybe not. Let's face it, the Republican's may have lucked into the  the best candidate to go up against us. McCain's got a 20 year brand as a "maverick" some one who goes against the grain of the the standard Republican. I'm not speaking to the truth of this brand, but the perception and there is a big difference between reality and perception. Perception tends to win in the short term until folks start paying attention. And right now I don't think the majority of the electorate is paying attention.

Next are we really expecting to much. Gallup has an interesting read on this:

McCain: 49% Obama: 44% Barr 3% Undecided: 4%

Yes this is the real deal. McCain's tactics recently have been working, in which the recent poll from USA Today/Gallup. Obama experienced a 10% decrease among voters under 30 years old where some analysts believe this may result from McCain's appearance at the faith forum with Warren the other night. It is believed that the higher percentage of religious people under the age of 30 gave a boost to McCain. The poll also found that Obama's recent statement regarding his answers to the Georgia-Russia conflict has made him weaker among national security issues among people polled overall in this poll.

Chris Bowers at Open Left characterized this Gallup poll as the "Best Poll of the Year" and I have to agree...   Quite honestly it's the only poll that I think Gallup has done this year which could be seen as an accurate picture of the electorate today.  Bower's explains

What makes this poll different from all other polls released this year is that it is open-ended, and does not include the names of any candidates or parties in the question. Thus, this poll measures hard support for each candidate, and also provides an accurate gauge of third-party support:
Gallup, August 7-10, 903 RVs, MoE 4

Obama: 45%
McCain: 38%
Nader: 1%
Barr: 1%
Clinton: 1%
Other: 2%
None / Won't Vote: 7%
Unsure: 6%

We can tell from this poll that Obama leads by 7% in "hard" support. That is, among voters who seem to have made up their mind to the point where they no longer have to be prompted in their choice, Obama holds a decent advantage.

Obama is up 7...good news...even though NONE of us are checking!!!

And I don't care if people carp and whine about spurious poll anxiety... tracking polls matter!

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/...

Kerry's long August slide in 2004 reflected the damage done to his reputation.

Now Obama has been able to pull back to 48% - a level he had not reached since July 31. The long string of Mac attacks did not dent him too badly.

There was a lot of freaking out on DailyKos when Rasmussen's tracking poll had McCain taking a 47%-46% lead over Obama, when leaners were included. I was part of that freak out, not particularly because I thought Obama was falling behind in the race, but that McCain had seemingly broken that 45% barrier that had filled me with the confidence that we would win in November. Then, Zogby issued a telephone poll with McCain up 42%-41%.

But, since then, Gallup has bounced Obama to a 47%-43% lead and I assumed that Rasmussen would be soon to follow. Gallup's tracking poll tends to pick up movement in the race faster than Rasmussen.

On the flip.

Cross-posted at Election inspection

How's those attack ads working out for you John?  Makes you wonder if the public is now catching on to his sleazeball tactics.  Obama needs to keep running ads with Bush and McCain side by side.  Hell I'd love to see the one where he's hugging Bush go national.  That sure will get the talking heads buzzing.

I'm saying cause for the last 4 days, they have gone from an 8 point Obama lead to a 1 point lead, meaning that if the trend continues, McCain will actually lead tomorrows tracking poll, or Saturday's.  

PRINCETON, NJ -- The race for the presidency has moved back into a statistical tie in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update of national registered voters, with Barack Obama now ahead of John McCain by just one percentage point, 45% to 44%.

Today's results are based on Gallup Poll Daily tracking from July 28-30.

The latest three-day average confirms that Obama was unable to solidify the significant lead he briefly enjoyed among registered voters at the height of publicity surrounding his weeklong visit to Afghanistan, Iraq, the Middle East, and Europe. Gallup tracking showed Obama's lead rising at one point as high as nine percentage points (for the average from last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), but the presumptive Democratic nominee has been losing ground since that point.

There were many problems with the latest Gallup Poll, which has McCain up +4 vs Obama. But now with more information (buried deep into the 9th paragraph of USA Today's own write up), it only gets worse. It's potentially "startlingly" worse

It seems that Gallup according to writer Seth Colter Walls, "committed polling malpractice", when describing polling expert, Prof. Adam Abramowitz analysis, of Gallup/USA today's latest halting revelation.

Gallup fudged the numbers in more ways than we ever thought!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Or at least that's one way to look at this new poll.  In it, Obama leads McCain 47% to 44% among registered voters, but trails 49% to 45% among likely voters.  There were 900 respondents in the registered voter poll while only 791 people were included in the likely voter poll.

Setting aside the fact that having nearly 88% of registered voters being likely voters is silly to begin with, let's dig into these numbers.

   His biggest lead ever in the daily tracking poll!
http://www.gallup.com/...

    Normally I don't put much stock in these daily movements but McCain's team seems to be really panicing. Perhaps their internals are as bad as this poll and they are worried Obama is on the verge of closing the sale and putting the straight talk express out of it's misery.

I know many of us discount the daily tracking polls at the same time we are glued to the next round of results.  I thought it was pretty stupid when the media was pointing to the lack of movement during Obama's travels abroad before any time had elapsed where people could digest how the trip was going. Well if you ask me this bounce we see developing has some legs.

Both Rasmussen and Gallup show a measurable bounce for Obama in the afterglow of his triumphant international tour, capped off by his speech at the Victory Column in front of a massive German crowd.

What remains to be seen, however, is if this presages a larger trend.

Barack Obama is having a great trip in the middle east and seems to be getting no bounce. In the rasmussen tracking poll he is flat, dead even with leaners. Yesterday he was up 6 in the gallup and lost 3 points today and is only getting 45% of the voters polled, and gallup polls cell phones.
Is it possible he is going to get blowback from people for going oversees and acting like the statesman we expect him to be or is McCain actually getting somewhere with his lame attacks.
I was very hopeful when I saw yesterdays Gallup poll that he would take off and put McCain out of his misery.Anyway I realize this is a  short diary but i`m interested in what other people think of this problem.

Rasmussen has a new poll of Virginia showing a tie between Obama and McCain, with McCain leading by one point with leaners included, 48-47%. As previous polls have indicated, the presidential election in this state is a deadlock. New registers and highly increased levels of AA turnout could well prove the difference.

More below.

Sorry to be a one-note Willie, but as my doppelganger Professor Pollkatz has been saying for five years now, Bush's approval goes down and up as the price of gasoline goes up and down.

The reason I mention this once again is that an awful lot of bloggers and commenters have a smug certainty that Bush is down for the count; he'll be President 28% forever, and he'll hold McCain down with him.  I don't think so.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding.  Here's the pudding:

pollkatz.com
(find "Bush Approval and Gasoline Prices," lower right of your screen)