No sweat

I believe polls never, because I suspect they are used by the left leaning media in order to create panic and depression in conservatives before an election--and to deceive conservatives on election day into thinking that all is lost early, and that they may as well not show up. Remember in 2004 when the big 3 networks all but called the election for Kerry based on exit polls?

This doesn't mean I'm always right and the polls are necessarily wrong. In 2006, despite polls showing a catastrophic loss for the GOP in both chambers of Congress, I believed Karl Rove when he said on Hugh Hewitt's show that the GOP would keep the house and possibly even make gains in the Senate. I believed him because up to that point he had been right an awful lot and the polls had been deceptively wrong an awful lot as well.

But I still refuse to put much stock in polls as a general principle. It's a nice feeling when your guy is up and the other guy is down, but really it's meaningless. Voters who are not hard leftists have got to overcome a lot of doubts to vote for Obama: His relationship with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. His two decades of indoctrination in the church of borderline cult leader and extreme America hater Jeremiah Wright. His up-to-his-eyeballs involvement with the corrupt Chicago combine, including Tony Rezko, and now, his "community organizer" activities with the shakedown operation known as ACORN are getting more attention in light of the mortgage scandal (one of Mr. Obama's specialties was training shakedown artists to go hit up Chicago banks for loans to people who couldn't afford them).

Of course, as Rush pointed out yesterday, McCain is hurting himself by not talking about this. Mac missed a golden opportunity in the first debate to pin this mess on the likes of Obama and his fellow obstructionists on the hill. McCain signed on as a co-sponsor of s.190, a lending reform bill, in 2005. Democrats like Obama, the second largest recipient of campaign contributions from the government backed lenders, made sure this never saw the light of day. McCain alleges that he will "make them famous and you will know their names." Yet he didn't nail Barry to the wall on this one. And it may have cost him big. He can try to correct it in the next debate, but a lot fewer people will tune in for that one.

So a lot is resting on Sarah Palin's shoulders tonight. I'm still not worried, I think she'll cream Biden and handle the ridiculously partisan and highly unethical Gwen Ifill masterfully. But the campaign has lost some momentum. I still put no stock in polls, and I'll believe Obama has this won when I see the electoral vote count on election night. But this election is McCain's to win or lose, and he's got to decide if he's going to play smashmouth or not.