Palin's Polling

The proof of Palin's performance is in the poll numbers, and Rassmussen still has Obama up by 5 in his daily tracking, while Gallup has him up by 7. That's not surprising, as daily tracking polls reflect a rolling average over a period of days, and today's numbers wouldn't reflect reaction to Palin's speech yet.

But there's a fascinating poll recently released by CBS that has Obama and McCain tied at 42% - and it was taken Monday through Wednesday, before the speech. This poll is remarkable for a number of reasons, the main one being that Obama was eight points ahead in the same poll last weekend.

But it gets even better.

Read the fine print at the bottom of the article, which shows how the poll was conducted.

This poll was conducted among a random sample of 835 adults nationwide, including 734 registered voters, interviewed by telephone September 1-3, 2008.

835 adults. Over 10% of these guys aren't even registered to vote! Historically, the best barometer of actual voting behavior is that of likely voters, not just registered ones. (Both the Gallup and Rassmussen polls also reflect the opinions of registered, not likely, voters.)

When the likely voter standard isn't applied, the results tend to skew heavily in the Democrat's favor. Reduce that threshold down to just adults, and the numbers veer left even further.

If Obama is tied with McCain among adults, he's behind. Probably seriously behind.

We live in interesting times.