Scott Rasmussen is an evangelical Christian but also was co-founder of ESPN, also for what it's worth. His polling is pretty mechanical, but he still had Obama overpolling in the New Hampshire primary by 10 just like everyone else.
I don't believe the CBS poll, or the Zogby giving the advantage to McCain, either. The problem isn't the results, it's their methodology and historical record. Like Scott Rasmussen and Carl Rove have been saying -- we need to wait until we see the polling from late next week to see where we stand.
The Ras methodology makes it rather hard for there to be big changes in favor of McCain. He has targetted his robot callers to sample X Dems and Y GOP with X > Y and that simply is inevitably going to give the Dems an advantage — which it should.
The fight is for the Zs. The moderate independents. The REAL FIGHT is to stop any and all efforts by the media And OURSELVES at making Palin out to be a right wing conservative. She must be painted as a moderate, or we lose.
It’s that simple. She must not be described as a right wing conservative or we lose the middle, and that’s the only place where there are votes remaining to be found.
“...but he still had Obama overpolling in the New Hampshire primary by 10 just like everyone else.”
He did not. Neither did most pollsters.
Rasmussen predicted Obama to win 37% of the NH primary vote. He won 36.4%. Of the seven pollsters who polled NH immediately before the primary, 4 were within a point of two of Obama’s final number.
Hillary won the undecideds in NH. Obama did not underperform his polling, she overperformed hers. In NH. One state. Her campaign made much of it because it was a surprise and they hoped it would be a game-changer, but there is much mythology surrounding that primary that is simply not true, and most of it came from Carville, Wolfson and McAuliffe. Freepers who ordinarily would be very wary of any spin coming from the Clintonistas have bought into the myth of NH, hook, line and sinker.
Some other facts: Obama outperformed his polling in more primary states than did Hillary, and he won undecideds in more states. This, despite Operation Chaos.