Poll Madness

The polls are coming fast and furious these days, and thus we turn to the oracular pollwatcher Nate Silver, of FiveThirtyEight.com, for some clarification. Sayeth Silver: “[T]he overall trend in this election is roughly flat, and has been for about a week or so. That is bad news for the candidate trailing in the race, which in this case is John McCain.” What about the shocking AP poll, highlighted on The Drudge Report, that showed McCain trailing by only a point? The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder points out that 44 percent of the respondents identified themselves as evangelicals—about twice what pollsters would expect. So take the poll with a huge grain of salt.