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Well, only for people who think McCain is going to march to some magic 55-45 lead.

He isn't, and neither is Obama. This is an electoral college campaign,....

I disagree in part. I think it will be relatively close (but McCain's election to lose, as I now believe it is) until the last week, with the late deciders and swing voters breaking for McCain. The electoral college map won't matter once McCain is ahead more than two or three points nationally. Next week's Gallup polls may be the most important ones to date. If McCain is ahead by a few points by this time next week, Cindy McCain can start measuring the White House drapes as far as I'm concerned.

Do the math. Assume there are 10-12% undecideds (as most polls show, maybe less). Assume they break 60/40 for McCain (pretty big assumption). That's not enough of the vote to swing a state like Michigan or Pennsylvania is McCain is 4-5 points down, which is where he is. In a state like MN, he's 11 down. So even if the undecideds go his way, it CANNOT shift large numbers of electoral votes.

It could possibly give him NH and perhaps NM. Those are the likeliest states to go his way other than the necessary ones.

BTW, I did the math---I'm terrible at math, so double check, but in MI in 2004, Kerry won by 154,000 or so out of 4.8 million total votes. 10% undecideds would have been 480,000, and half of that is 240,000, so theoretically it's possible, if McCain was matching Bush's turnout already, that he could squeak out MI. It's about the same numbers in PA---not counting "other" or third party.

Cook's political report says that traditionally, 2/3s of the voters break against the incumbent. So for McCain to get even half when Obama is working to portray him as Bush 3, will be very, very difficult. Other surveys over time (including congressional races) found that as many as 86% of "undecideds" break for the challenger.

BUT the number of undecideds, obviously, declines sharply as one gets to the final election. Typically, it's down to 2-3% by election day. So we are talking, in Michigan, about 90,000-120,000 voters, meaning they ALL could break for McCain and if the 2004 statistics still held, Obama would still take MI and PA, and McCain wouldn't have a hope in hell of taking some of the other EV states such as CT, NJ, WI, DE, and so on.