A few additional comments of note:
The folks quoting whoever saying polls don’t matter may want to take a look at campaign budgets and just how much money is spent nightly on polling. If they didn’t matter and had no value, there would be no point flushing that money away. The money is spent because the pros are confident polling has enormous value.
Polling science is pretty well understood now and there is no evidence at all that polls we see are inferior to polls the campaigns fund. About all the campaigns see that we might not is a big more resolution as to demographic and regional result, but in general what we see from polls is what the campaigns see.
McCain is going to get a bounce and it’s going to fade. Right about now is the time for FR to get creative as it never has in the past. McCain is not taking money from donors any longer because he’s accepting federal money. All fund raising now being done is for the party. So FReepers can no longer demonstrate their passion with a checkbook. It’s time this cycle to get creative. Put your thinking caps on and create some way to contribute in the battleground states. If you live in one, you have an easy task. Volunteer for the campaign and do literature drops of brochures in moderate/middle neighborhoods that emphasize only moderate/middle issues. If you don’t live in a battleground state, start thinking of what you can do.
Yes they can! I wish we could put this false rumor around here to bed. If people could not donate to the campaign, the McCain/Palin site would simply say "No thanks." Instead it specifically spells out where the money will go, to a Victory 2008 fund. That fund will work for McCain/Palin's election.
The below is taken straight from this donation site, still active as of two minutes ago:
McCain-Palin Victory 2008 is a joint fundraising committee by the McCain-Palin Compliance Fund, Republican National Committee, and Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania Republican Parties. Because the McCain-Palin Campaign is participating in the presidential public funding system, it may not receive contributions for any candidate's election. However, federal law allows the McCain-Palin Campaign's Compliance Fund to defray legal and accounting compliance costs and preserve the Campaign's public grant for media, mail, phones, and get-out-the-vote programs. Contributions to McCain-Palin Victory 2008 will go to the Compliance Fund, and to participating party committees for Victory 2008 programs.