"...the President has a 4 - 5 point lead. That's not really a dead heat."
Right. I also read somewhere, maybe here, probably here, some old election hand say he always adds 4 pts. to the republican and subtracts 2 from the dem, to account for bias. I don't know if this is relevent, but Kerry has not had a lead in most polls for over a month now.
I don't want to get too optimistic, but I don't want to be as pessimistic as Will, either.