McCain said this morning in New Hampshire, "More than once, they've ignored the polls and the pundits, and brought me across the finish line first."

This is, of course, just backwards.  Polls can be wrong, but legitimate polls basically reflect what people tell them.  This statement suggests that the polls, and pundits interpreting them, tell people how to vote.  McCain and others behind in the polls are in the odd position of having to assert that polls are some evil external force to be resisted by voters.

This could be a key moment in this year's election cycle:  Jim Webb's GI Bill increasing the educational benefits for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will come up for a vote in the Senate as part of the emergency war funding bill.  There will be a lot of agenda-masking legislative tactics, but Senators' positions on this bill will be key marker for them in on veterans' issues for the campaign. 

This is a particularly high stakes day for Senator McCain.  He has opposed the Webb bill, offering his own cheap immitation,  but has been trying to negotiate a compromise that lets him come back in out of the cold.  If he ends up opposing Webb today, he will have fundamentally undercut his claim on the loyalty of veterans, a vulnerability that Senator Obama is well prepared to exploit (see his great West Virginia speech on veterans issues )

Politico sets the scene well.