Polls and TV

The Votemaster's current tally of various polls (see chart on right) shows Sen. Obama with a significant and winning lead in electoral votes over Sen. McCain - 316 to 209 with 13 ties.

I disagree with the Votemaster counting statistical ties (those states with center colored white) in either camp-a statistical tie consisting of either candidate with a lead of less than twice the margin of error for a poll, usually 3%-4%.

My tally of the Votemaster's data has Obama leading with 244 electoral votes, McCain with 165, and 129 in doubt due to statistical ties.

Even though national polls show the race to be statistically tied, or with Obama in a slight lead, the important data are those for the individual states. As we learned in 2000, what matters is the electoral vote, not the national popular vote.

Yes, poll watching too closely is an intellectually flaccid endeavor; however, neither candidate has proposed anything recently that is either of national significance or intellectually engaging. Until the Democratic and republican parties have their conventions later this month,and the electorate returns from vacation, expect the campaigns to achieve a degree of stasis for the most part.

How McCain will direct his campaign going forward? Have you seen the television ad comparing Obama, a graduate of Columbia University, Harvard Law, and a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, with the vapid celebrities Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears? And why juxtapose the two blond, white women with the black Barack Obama? It seems too similar to the Republican attacks against Harold Ford in Tennessee on 2006 to be an accident, so chalk up that McCain ad to a blatant appeal to racism. It certainly looks at though McCain is following the lead of Republican muck-meisters Lee Atwater and Karl Rove.

You would think that Senator McCain, who was slimed by the Bush people during the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary with similarly race-based ads would be averse to these tactics. But it looks as though the "maverick" who piloted the "Straight Talk Express" has disappeared for the duration.