One lesson I am going to draw from this election: when a poll reports that Candidate X “leads” Candidate Y by 47-45 in some state, I am going to remember that Candidate X isn’t necessarily leading at all. You still have to find out who the remaining undecided voters are and which way you think they are going to break in the end.
And there is also the margin of error. If the polls are within that, then it is essentially a dead heat. The MSM reports Obama in the lead regardless of the margin of error and McCain is always tied when leading by a similar amount within the margin of error.