Poll Watching

The new CNN poll shows Bush way ahead, but also shows underneath Kerry winning the 3rd debate and maintaining his favorability rating.

MSNBC has an interesting article here showing Bush ahead among women and Kwerry ahead among men. What?

The polls showing it close are the "Registered voter" polls. The polls showing big Bush leads are the "likely voter" polls. What is the difference? Typically, the first question is "did you vote in 2000?" If no, not "likely." So these polls tend to under-represent young voters and newly registered voters (who tend to be Democrats). There are clearly many people out there who are apathetic to politics, but motivated enough to vote against Bush, and these type of people are also not counted. So, the upshot off all of this is...it's still close. It will still be decide in a few states only, and it will still be all about turn-out.

Mickey Kaus has an interesting take (scroll down to Saturday) on the vote-with-the-winner phenomenon over at Slate. He suggest people might want to make sure there is a clear winner so as to avoid another recount mess, and hence would vote for the favorite. I don't buy it, not this year with tensions so high on both sides and also with the Dems feeling like they got screwed last time. I think we still have a long election night ahead of us.