Very nice analysis. The math is inescapable. We are truly seeing a generational and political shift that is happening completely under the radar. I can't wait to finally see what the primary trends have already made clear.

We know the Democrats outnumber the Republicans this year.

If you don't know exactly where (state, district) those Democrats live, you really don't know much of anything that matters.

What does it matter what I know? It's what the Obama campaign knows that counts. And they know all of what you're talking about and more.

No, they don't know all of that. They're working on it, but they don't know it yet. They need YOU to figure it out. They need you to go down to the campaign office, or sign up at their neighbor to neighbor feature, and start making phone calls. Trust me, there's a hell of a lot more work that needs to be done by every one of Obama's supporters before he can get elected. I know it seems like Obama has an army of volunteers working for him, and that you can't help, but you can and you should. Everyone should. Just spend an hour making calls.

Kittybunny -
And you know where the biggest electoral surprise might be - try Texas . There are whole bunch of new voter down here -we might in the end not win the Lone Star State for Obama - but we will hand "Big John " Coryn his neocon ass on a platter come November ..
Ah yes Christmas comes six weeks early this year !

1) Republicans lie every campaign. They don't wait until they're worried.

2) McCain won the experience argument. Now he's run over the "change" argument. And the "most American" argument. Now we're at financial meltdown - will McCain win this one as well?

3) Polls assign "likely voters", including identifying percentages of Reps and Dems. The number of people identifying themselves as Republicans has risen substantially since the beginning of August, starting long before the conventions.

4) McCain is getting matching funds, so only has to raise half as much. And the GOP party is adding 2 seconds of "issues content" to his TV ads so they can split the cost 50-50. So basically McCain can get on TV for 1/4 the contributions as Obama. 2+2=4.

Speaking of flying under the radar: in this case switching from land lines to cell phones. In 2004 in Metro Atlanta we had two residential phone books, A-L and M-Z; each was about two inches thick. Today we have one residential phone book, A-Z, and it's not quite one inch thick. Metro Atlanta has about five million people, a number large enough in an area culturally and socioeconomically diverse enough to be representative of a fair cross section of the country as a whole. Extrapolating the national trend from our local trend, one could assume that land-line pollsters have access to perhaps only a quarter of the electorate.

You're probably right about some of the polls using non-representative samples but the trend they show is still meaningfull even if the final tabulation is not .

I think we should stop worrying about the polls for now. They are returned to the pre-convention numbers. We live in polarizing times.

Here's the latest September 16 poll from Research 2000: Obama 48 McCain 44.

Obama IS rising in the polls again and moving ahead. The McCain campaign has probably peaked.

So the behind in the polls news is starting to become old news.

Obama is also winning the ground game and the new voters game, things that don't show in the polls. Virginia polls yesterday were very good news and no one mentions them.

Obama haters just won't admit anything good about him, but in the polls Obama now scores better favorables than any of the candidates and Palin is falling fast, very fast.

I just want to throw in a comment about how true this post is.
My husband and I live in Virginia and we are both first time voters at ages 31 and 33. We have never really cared much about voting and thought "vote for the lesser evil", I'd rather not vote. This year we ran to go register because for the first time in our lives we have been inspired. GO OBAMA!!!!

If you truly want to know why the Sexist Pig Oilbama is sinking like a rock in the polls, besides the fact that Oilbama voted with Bush and Cheney and supported their Energy Bill which gave away 9 Billion to Big Oil, this article will help clarify it for you.

One of Them and One of Us
by Pat Buchanan
One wonders: What did Sarah Palin ever do to inspire the rage and bile that exploded on her selection by John McCain? What is there either in this woman’s record or resume to elicit such feline ferocity?

What did we know of her when she was introduced?
That she was a mother of five who had brought into this world a baby boy with Down syndrome, thus living her Christian beliefs. That she was a small-town conservative who had risen from mayor of Wasilla (Pop. 9,700) to be governor of a state twice the size of Texas.
That she was a reformer who had dethroned an Old Boys’ Network by dumping a sitting Republican governor. That she had taken on Big Oil, taxed the companies and returned the money in $1,200 checks to every citizen of Alaska. And that she had cut a deal with Canada to build a pipeline to bring natural gas to her fellow Americans.
And, oh, yes. She was “Sarah Barracuda” — a fierce high school athlete, a runner-up in the Miss Alaska pageant, a Feminist for Life and lifetime member of the NRA. Introduced by McCain, she praised Hillary Clinton and pledged to finish her work by smashing through the glass ceiling in which Hillary had made 18 million cracks.
What, in any or all of this, is there to justify the feral attacks within minutes of her introduction? What had she done to cause this outburst? Answer: absolutely nothing.
No. Sarah Palin is not resented for what she has done, but for who she is: a Christian conservative who believes unborn children are gifts of God, even those with birth defects, and have a God-given right to life.
Normally, the press is reluctant to rummage into the private lives of public servants, unless their conduct affects their duties or they preach virtues they hypocritically do not practice.
Yet, no sooner was Palin introduced, than the media went berserk over the news that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. As one in three births in America is out-of-wedlock and Hollywood celebrates this lifestyle, why did The New York Times and The Washington Post splash this “news” on page one above the fold?
How does Bristol Palin’s pregnancy disqualify Sarah Palin to be vice president? Why is it even relevant?
They did it because they thought it would damage Sarah Palin in the eyes of a Christian community they do not comprehend.
So out of bounds was the media that Obama, in an act of decency, declared Palin’s family off limits and reminded the media that he was himself born to a teenage single mom.
If one would wish to see the famous liberal double standard on naked display, consider.
Palin’s daughter was fair game for a media that refused to look into reports that John Edwards, a Democratic candidate for president, was conducting an illicit affair with a woman said to be carrying his child and cheating on his faithful wife Elizabeth, who has incurable cancer. That was not a legitimate story, but Bristol Palin’s pregnancy is?
Why did the selection of Sarah Palin cause a suspension of all standards and a near riot among a media that has been so in the tank for Barack even “Saturday Night Live” has satirized the infatuation?
Because she is one of us — and he is one of them.
Barack and Michelle are affirmative action, Princeton, Columbia, Harvard Law. She is public schools and Idaho State. Barack was a Saul Alinsky social worker who rustled up food stamps. Sarah Palin kills her own food.
Michelle has a $300,000-a-year sinecure doing PR for a Chicago hospital. Todd Palin is a union steelworker who augments his income working vacations on the North Slope. Sarah has always been proud to be an American. Michelle was never proud of America — until Barack started winning.
Barack has zero experience as an executive. Sarah ran her own fishing fleet, was mayor for six years and runs the largest state in the union. She belongs to a mainstream Christian church. Barack was, for 15 years, a parishioner at Trinity United and had his daughters baptized by Pastor Jeremiah Wright, whose sermons are saturated in black-power, anti-white racism and anti-Americanism.
Sarah is a rebel. Obama has been a go-along, get-along cog in the Daley Machine. She is Middle America. Barack, behind closed doors in San Francisco, mocked Middle Americans as folks left behind by the global economy who cling bitterly to their Bibles, bigotries and guns.
Barack has zero foreign policy experience. Palin runs a state that is home to anti-missile, missile and air defense bases facing the Far East, commands the Alaska National Guard and has a soldier-son heading for Iraq.
Barack, says the National Journal, has the most left-wing voting record in the Senate, besting Socialist Bernie Sanders. Palin’s stances read as though they were lifted from Reagan’s 1980 “no pale pastels” platform. And this is what this media firestorm is all about.

My question is this: Is our campaign sending each one of those people a paper, absentee ballot? and a stamp? It is the only way around the repub ace in the hole--voter suppression, not enough ballot machines at key precincts, traffic jams, challenges at the check-in table, traffic jams, etc.

I don't agree that lies backfire. They worked darned well for McCain during the GOP primaries, and McCain is clearly counting on them working again.

Republican voters either believe the lies or guffaw along with them, and chortle at how McCain is punking Obama. Obama's message is drowned out, day after day, as McCain dominates each cable news cycle. Voters in the center are either turned off or, worse yet, gravitate towards McCain, when Obama seems weak or defensive. And the so-called low information voters soak up the misunformation.

Example? My 9 year old son came home from school telling how one of his classmates was holding forth on how Obama was responsible for high gas prices, since he "wouldn't let anyone drill for oil."

Out of the mouths of babes ...

re the new, young voters: they are notoriously unreliable when it comes to actually voting. I recommend that they (and probably everybody) vote by absentee ballot in advance. It's paper, for one thing. For another, it will circumvent the problems of very long lines, bad weather, faulty machines, schedule conflicts, etc..
Of course, the various methods of voter suppression we're already hearing are in the works are a major concern.
Young voters are also very fickle. If they're disillusioned in any way, they won't show up.
Cell phones may not be the factor once thought.
But I believe Caller I.D. may, in fact, be affecting polling results. Many people, myself included, don't answer a call from a number I don't recognize.
There's no way to know what will happen. We all have to keep working, as various earlier posters have said. This election may be the most important one in our lifetimes.