[Owen]

One wonders about all this stuff. Stuff being polls. The way polls are now, they self select. The pollsters target zipcodes and from there a selection of people who have voted regularly (to call them likely voters).

Then the phone machines start and everyone who does not answer or hangs up is not selected. Only those who want to be heard are selected. So regardless of the GOP vs Dem mixture, only those who feel really strongly are polled. Everyone else hangs up the phone, even if they are going to vote.

So this measures only those with intense feelings. That means the undecided are intensely undecided. They have to be a really volatile sort. Imagine enduring an entire survey just for the opportunity to say I Don't Know.

Some may be Caspar Milquetoast types who are intimidated by chipmunks and will answer the survey regardless of inconvenience, and go with undecided because that word sums up their life in general. Those folks are also volatile.

Weird.

[My2Cents]

Frankly, Owen, having seen the lies pumped out by the LA Times in its polls prior to the recall election in California, I think a strong case can be made that media polls (at the very least) are frauds, right up to the final weekend of the campaign.