Scott Rasmussen, a rather prescient pollster, shows some interesting movement in five key battleground states:

Colorado. Just last week, Sen. Obama was polling three points ahead in Mile High country; the state carries with it nine electoral votes. But the latest Rasmussen poll puts Sen. McCain ahead, 48%-46%. This is still within the margin of error; and with 50 days still remaining until Election Day, this state is very much up for grabs. But it no longer belongs in the "Leaning Democratic" category.

Florida. This is a huge swing state, with 27 electoral votes; it trails only California, Texas, and New York in this regard. Last week, Rasmussen showed the two major-party candidates in a dead heat. Now, however, Sen. McCain has opened up a five-point lead, 49%-44%. The Sunshine State is still uncertain; but there is a very good chance, in my opinion, that it will end up in the GOP column.

Ohio. This is another important swing state, with 20 electoral votes. It had been trending Republican in recent weeks (despite a sour economy and GOP scandals over the past couple of years, that had appeared to take their toll until recently). Sen. McCain had taken a rather large, seven-point lead in Ohio as of last week, however. But the Illinois senator has cut into that lead rather significantly. McCain still leads in Ohio, but by a comparatively scant 48%-45%.

Virginia. The commonwealth of Virginia has 13 electoral votes at stake. It had been trending Republican in recent weeks, despite northern Virginia's propensity to vote Democratic. But the latest Rasmussen poll shows a reversal of that trend, with the race now deadlocked in Virginia at 48% each.

Pennsylvania. With 21 electoral votes at stake, the Keystone State is a rather large prize. It ordinarily votes Democratic in presidential elections (albeit narrowly), on the strength of Philadelphia's considerable pro-Democratic leanings. And just a couple of weeks ago, Sen. Obama was up in Pennsylvania by 49%-42%--a rather substantial lead. The state's slight Democratic tilt should (theoretically) have been enhanced by the selection of Deleware Sen. Joe Biden as Sen. Obama's running-mate, since many Pennsylvanians--as I understand it--regard Sen. Biden affectionately, as Pennsylvania's "third senator." However, the race is now tied in this must-win state for the Democrats, at 47% each, according to Rasmussen.

I find these developments to be of considerable interest.

I love how Ramussen leaves the Democrats and their recent scandals in Ohio out of it. Like our former AG Marc Dann, Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy DiMora and Auditor Frank Russo and Ohio Industrial Commission Director and Liquor Control Agency Director due to "issues".

And others such as these.
# State Rep. Matthew Barrett resigned after months of lying to investigators about an incident in which he showed pornographic images to school children.
# Ohio Democratic Party Secretary and Cuyahoga County Recorder Patrick O'Malley resigned after pleading guilty to a federal obscenity charge.
# Lorain City Councilman Dennis Flores was arrested in a prostitution sting and charged with solicitation.
# Ohio Senate Minority Leader Ray Miller was found guilty of violating state election laws after failing to report his campaign finances for six years.

__________________
Pioneers are walking all around singing songs about Lenin and they should be shot for it.

Handlebars

"If you are looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror"- V

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
H. L. Mencken

come on you know you wanna play football..

Beagán agus a rá go maith.

Economic Left/Right: 3.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.87

it is interesting to say the least. i had assumed that obama was going to just keep on moving up and away from mccain. he seems to have stalled.

seems like as people actually hear his proposals and ideas, they arent quite a upbeat about him as before. he is, after all he tried to show in the primaries, a politician just like all the others and its beginning to show

Why would a litany of politician malfeasance be included in a story on poll numbers?

__________________
An employee gets trampled to death by a frenzied, greedy mob at a Walmart sale, and customers actually complained when the store closed. Yet, I'm the bad guy for suggesting policies that assume people act like retarded herd animals that need government nannying and control....

Well it was included when it was Republicans.

__________________
Pioneers are walking all around singing songs about Lenin and they should be shot for it.

Handlebars

"If you are looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror"- V

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
H. L. Mencken

come on you know you wanna play football..

Beagán agus a rá go maith.

Economic Left/Right: 3.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.87

Hmm. Sounds less like an informative piece of journalism than a biased screed, then. I wish the media would knock that off.

__________________
An employee gets trampled to death by a frenzied, greedy mob at a Walmart sale, and customers actually complained when the store closed. Yet, I'm the bad guy for suggesting policies that assume people act like retarded herd animals that need government nannying and control....

Democrats are running Ohio now and up to the arse in scandals right now.. the Democrat AG resigned due misuse and violation of employer and employee regulation.

__________________
Pioneers are walking all around singing songs about Lenin and they should be shot for it.

Handlebars

"If you are looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror"- V

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
H. L. Mencken

come on you know you wanna play football..

Beagán agus a rá go maith.

Economic Left/Right: 3.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.87

The difference between corrupt, incompetent, ethically-challenged Democrat politicians, and corrupt, incompetent, ethically-challenged Republican politicians is immaterial. You almost make it sound as if corruption is a standard Democrat platform plank...?

Going down this road of trying to make one side look better by pointing out the failings of the other side is why people stay away from the polls in droves and loathe political ads. Weak, tired tactic that only serves to feed more cynicism.

Are you insinuating that had Republicans been in charge of Ohio, it wouldn't have happened? I find that very hard to beleive, as there are certainly plenty of examples of GOP malfeasance as well.

I resent the implications all over this forum that EVERYTHING the Dems do is horrible, evil, immoral and unAmerican, while EVERYHING the GOP does is righteous, patriotic and awesome. (Or vice versa...) That's just stupid.

And, I don't trust people so blinded by allegiance that they are unwilling to see, understand and admit the flaws of their own side. Once we become immune from criticism...well...bad things start to happen. History is replete with examples.

So, just stop, Finny. I don't want to see you and Affrayer get into an examplefest about who's worse than who.

__________________
An employee gets trampled to death by a frenzied, greedy mob at a Walmart sale, and customers actually complained when the store closed. Yet, I'm the bad guy for suggesting policies that assume people act like retarded herd animals that need government nannying and control....

No what I am saying is both sides need to be called on it. Only one side was in the poll analyst. Both sides need to be. Its called being neutral.

Just like in the next topic I post in.. which you claim just Republicans caused this Economic downturn. But we'll get to that in that topic.

__________________
Pioneers are walking all around singing songs about Lenin and they should be shot for it.

Handlebars

"If you are looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror"- V

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
H. L. Mencken

come on you know you wanna play football..

Beagán agus a rá go maith.

Economic Left/Right: 3.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.87

In a related development, a new Hot Air blog is headlined, "CBS poll: Obama leads by five after trailing by two post-convention," and adds: "That’s among registereds. Among likely voters, he … leads by the same margin, a bad result given that Maverick’s typically fared much better with that group." It continues:

"There were enormous swings among women towards McCain in other polls last week. If these numbers are right and the pendulum’s swung back, it probably means they were drawn to Palin, gave her a look, and … didn’t like what they saw. In fact, in the CBS poll her favorables among women have dropped 11 points in a week; among Hillary voters she splits 20/48, even though 25 percent of Clintonites say they’re voting for McCain. She’s still +10 in favorables overall — but as of last week she was +22, which I guess means that Hotline poll I linked yesterday wasn’t such an outlier after all."

It appears that the percentage of Democrats sampled was enhanced, vis-a-vis a prior survey, thereby skewing the results a bit. But the larger story, I believe, is that the post-convention bounce (actually, more like the Palin bounce) has abated. If this survey is accurate, we may now be returning to pre-convention numbers (which is to say, pre-convention for both parties).

Of course, it is possible for one candidate to be ahead in potential popular votes, and the other ahead in potential electoral votes. Even so, these numbers are rather startling.

Here is the link: Hot Air CBS poll: Obama leads by five after trailing by two post-convention