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Only polls with likely voters are worth reading. There are alot of people out there with an opinion who have no intention to vote.

The majority of undecided voters don't hate Bush. That's why they're undecided. The genuine emotion that the President showed in the second half of his speech belies the DNC charge that he is a liar and a war profiteer.

And don't forget the Vietnam Vets rally in Washington next week. That will further damage Kerry. It will be impossible for Kerry to dismiss them as liars.

Just the oppposite. Likely Voters polls are cooked polls. Every pollster relies on correct predictions for attention, so he adjust his polls to fit his own expectations, and calls this "likely voters." But the real data is Registered voters.

Problem: many polling outfits simply pull "registered voters" at random, and then take guesses at why their data doesn't fit expectations. So cheap outifts, like Rasmussen, etc., know their RV data is so bad, they don't bother publishing it, then they make guesses. It's really no more useful that the Iowa markets.

If you want to REALLY know polling data, look at RVs of a long-established, commercial polling firm, like Gallup. Forget academic firms; their sampling is usually atrocious. Forget newbies, like Rasmussen and Zogby; they use "innocative" unproven methods at guessing. Forget polls too strongly associated with a single client, like Yankelovich (Time); they are pressured to guess by clients who don't like surprises and will, out of ignorance, blame them for statistical outliers.