I think you have hit on one point exactly: the failure of the McCain campaign to “McCain has failed to deliver a clear and consistent message of WHY people should vote for him.”

Whether his pick of Palin is “abominable” is, of course, the meme of both liberals and the MSM. As one who sat through eight years of MSM reporting the Reagan years, I can attest that there is a great divide between MSM pundits and a large segment of the American people.

Much of the same reporting occurred then, and right up to Election Day, MSM polls showed Jimmy Carter with a large lead in the polls. Of course, Reagan not only won, he won in a landslide. The MSM spent weeks reporting why their polls were so far off.

Some polls were as much as 15% outside the statistical margin of error. Because MSM polling from 1976 to 2004 showed this same huge gap between MSM reporting and the reality of the vote (with the exception of 1984 and 1996), I have a huge distrust of them. If they skewed in both directions, that would indicate that polling is an inexact art. Because their polls’ errors have only been in one direction, it is indication of a pattern.

I believe, after going back over poll results of the last 32 years, it is a non-too-subtle form of voter suppression.

Perhaps they will be correct this year and 2008 will join 1984 and 1996 as an election year in which the polls were merely skewed, not completely wrong by wide margins.

Time will tell.

As always, thanks for your always-valuable contribution to the discussion!

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I would like to put a link to your site on my blog roll if you want to do the same for mine. It would be a good way to build up both of our readerships.

thank you.

I looked over your blog and it looks really good. Do you ever do link exchanges on your blog roll? If you do, I’d like to exchange links with you.

Let me know if you’re interested.

Thanks..