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- Polls, polls, polls: In addition to Tom's comments on the value of early polling, NBC's Mark Murray provides us with some informative comparative data from the 2004 election (John Chait provides some context for that context). Meanwhile, a new poll conducted in Wisconsin gives Barack Obama a hefty 13-point lead over John McCain and Rasmussen finds Obama only trailing by 2 points in North Carolina, which hasn't gone Democratic since 1976.
- In Michigan, a key battleground state this year, McCain is reportedly sinking big money into television advertisements. The state is statistically a dead heat between the two candidates.
- Ever wonder how many different ways there are to reach 270 electoral votes in an election? This estimate puts it at a mere 51,199,463,116,367 possible combinations.
- Noted by Sam below, Obama has set up an internet rumor debunking site. Will it help? I'd argue that part of the reason Kerry lost in 2004 was because he didn't effectively respond to smears, and from that point of view, a rumor-debunking site certainly couldn't hurt Obama's campaign.
- Gallup looks at party ID and leaners and concludes that Obama's Democratic base is simply larger that McCain's Republican base, which accounts for his lead in the polls. I crunched Gallup's numbers and came away with about a 47-42 Obama-McCain spread, which corresponds to Gallup's daily tracker, as well as other recent general election matchups [PDF].
- Class warfare: The Tax Policy Center has released a report [PDF] comparing McCain and Obama's tax plans. Both run a deficit but Obama's is progressive while McCain's is regressive.
- Chris Cillizza makes the case against Kathleen Sebelius as veep. Ezra breaks down the logic.
- Ben Smith details Obama's transplant of part of DNC HQ to Chicago.
- The Obama campaign releases the candidate's Hawaiian birth certificate. This has done little to stop the wingnut rumor mill from chugging along, however.
- An eclectic
groupgang of 14 Republican members of Congress have little interest in supporting John McCain this fall. - And finally, Ron Paul's long quest for the presidency -- at least as a Republican -- appears to be over.
--Mori Dinauer
