in his column in today's Rocky Mountain News [October 12, 2004, "Littwin: If politics are Earth, Colorado is the sun"]. He writes, "Is this what it's like to live in a battleground state? Yes, some polls do suggest a tight race in Colorado, except for those that don't. And if you find that confusing, you haven't been paying attention. At the end of this race, look again for serious, if uneventful, discussion of the media's obsession with polling - right after the serious, if uneventful, discussion of negative campaigning. On the present electoral maps - you can find them, the president advises, on the Internet - Colorado is leaning Bush, Arizona is solidly for Bush, while Nevada and New Mexico are tossups. This is all, of course, subject to change. In the 2000 election, New Mexico was the only one of these states on the blue side of the divide - and only by 366 votes. I talked to Billy Sparks, the communications director for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat who is leading his party's effort to pick up electoral votes in this region. They're working on the emerging-Democratic-majority theory, in which the growing Hispanic population plays a central role."
The Swift Boat guys are again in the news and Ed Cone is mad as heck.
Electoral-vote.com: "Another slow news day. Ohio switched to Bush because the Rasmussen tracking poll there is now one day newer than the ARG poll that was most recent yesterday. See the Polling data link to the right of the map for all the raw data. Again we see that which pollster is most recent matters. See the Compare the pollsters link under the map for a detailed comparison."
"Other than the Rasmussen tracking polls, which average data over 7 or 14 days and thus don't move quickly, the only poll today is the 13th poll in Oklahoma since Sept. 1. And like the other 12, it shows Bush with an unshakable lead, this time 50% to 38%. Perhaps you are wondering why are they polling like crazy in Oklahoma when everyone knows the result with 99.999% certainly right now and not polling at all in Kansas, which is equally sure to go for Bush. The answer is simple: control of the U.S. Senate may hinge on the race between Brad Carson (D) and Tom Coburn (R) there. The polls are really about the Senate race, but once you have ordered a poll (typically for $10,000 to $15,000) depending on the number of questions, asking about the presidential race doesn't add much to the cost. Carson is currently slightly ahead, but it is very tight."
"Based on today's polling data, it looks like the new Senate will be 51 Republicans and 49 Democrats (including independent Jeffords who caucuses with the Democrats). But there are half a dozen or more tight races as described on the Senate page. While I don't talk about the Senate races every day, there are almost-daily updates to the Senate page. It is now listed on the menu as well as at the bottom of the page. The battle for the Senate may motivate many people to vote in states where the presidential race is a done deal, such as Oklahoma, South Dakota, Alaska, and others. There is also a huge battle for the House, but senators are more fun to watch in action."
"The site has had technical problems repeatedly in the past several days and has been down several times. I didn't want to discuss this, but I don't want anyone to think the problem was an incompetent hosting service. Just the opposite. The site has been subjected to a full-scale, well-organized, massive attack with the clear intention to bring it down. The attackers have tried repeatedly to break in, but the server is a rock-solid Linux system which has stood up to everything they threw at it and hasn't crashed since I got it in May. While our troops are fighting and dying to bring freedom of speech to the Iraqi people, there are forces in America who find this concept no longer applicable to America. I don't know who is behind this attack yet (although we are working it), but it is too professional to be some teenager working from a home PC. Given that all the hate mail and threats I get come entirely from Republicans, I can make an educated guess which side is trying to silence me, but I won't say. And I won't surrender to cyberterrorists."
"Staving off yesterday's attack was relatively easy. For $150, I upped my server capacity by adding an additional Pentium 4 with lots of bells and whistles. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve too. I must say the hosting company I am using, HostRocket has been fantastic. I burned through half a dozen web hosting companies before finding them. The others all promised the moon in their ads but the promised service vanished instantly as soon as they got paid. Hostrocket is a big company, with tens of thousands of customers, many of them large companies, and the technical staff is knowledgeable and very oriented towards helping the customers. They have done a wonderful job dealing with this attack. If you need a web hosting company for your business where reliability and customer service are top priorities, I recommend them very highly."
"I am sure the attack will continue. In the event that the site goes down again, one way to at least get the score and the daily commentary is via the RSS feed. That is very difficult to take down. I would suggest going to the RSS information page now and print it out for future use. If the site goes down, you won't be able to get to it then. More on countermeasures in a few days. I will not let the forces of censorship win."
Update: Poynter Online: "WSJ reporter Fassihi's e-mail to friends." Thanks to Mrs. Gulch for the link.
Update: The Daily Kos thinks that Gallup is cooking the books. It's a question of correctly normalizing your sample, and of course, since we're talking a statistical model, chance.
Update: The DNC has a listing of all Sinclair Media markets for those of you that have a need to know. One day after the news broke. You gotta love the Internet.
Update: Electoral-vote.com runs Linux.
Update: Josh Marshall: "Zogby has the race back to a tie at 45%. CBS has a new poll out with Bush up by three -- 48% to 45%. (CBS has a one point Bush lead if Nader isn't included, which shows you the impact of the fools who are planning to vote for Nader.) Gallup has Kerry up by one, 49% to 48%."
Update: Taegan Goddard: "'The contest for the White House continues to be razor-close. A CBS News poll of likely voters nationwide shows President Bush has a narrow edge over Senator John Kerry -- but his 48 percent to 45 percent lead is within the poll's margin of error.' The latest Reuters/Zogby tracking poll also shows a dead heat, with the race tied at 45%. The new Democracy Corps poll shows the race tied at 48%. Here are some key state polls: Pennsylania - Kerry 46, Bush 43 (Quinnipiac); New Jersey - Kerry 53, Bush 44 (Rasmussen)."
Update: Taegan Goddard: "The Bush campaign believes the election 'will be determined more by the turnout of each party's faithful' so Bush's 'speeches and their settings are largely emotional celebrations of conservatism.' In contrast, the Kerry campaign, 'figuring the election will be determined as much by centrist 'swing voters,' is making more of an overt appeal to the middle class.'"
6:35:39 AM 
