CNN has Obama nine points ahead of Romney. Pew has him four ahead. Gallup has Romney in the lead by four. I can't find Rasmussen at the moment but I gave up following them in November of 2010 when they said Daniel Inouye would win re-election to the senate by 11 points and two days later, he won by 40 points. I don't know how you miss by that much and remain in the same line of work. Imagine if your weatherman missed the forecast by 29 degrees. Would you listen to him tomorrow?
Anyway, what all these polls have in common is that they don't mean much now. I mean, they're interesting but we don't even know who Mitt's running mate will be or what the economy will be like in November or what wars we'll get into or out of. I'll betcha that the day before Election Day, you'll be able to name ten "issues" that are much-talked-about with regard to why this guy would be a better Chief Exec than that guy…ten "issues" that aren't even on the radar at the moment. At this point in the last election, Sarah Palin wasn't even a factor.
Barring the revelation that he's actually a Nazi War Criminal (see Drudge Report around early October), I expect to vote for Barack Obama. I have many complaints and disappointments about his presidency — most recently, revelations about Gitmo policies — but the current Republican agenda is just too scary. What I think I'm going to work on for myself is not paying too much attention to the campaign until…oh, around early October. I did something wise — for me, anyway — when the whole O.J. Murder Case started. I said to myself, "This could consume a lot of my time and passion if I start following it now."
So I didn't start following it then, which was the beginning of the case. I joined it in progress about two weeks before we got near a verdict. That was more than enough and it spared me all the ups and downs and ups and downs and caring about a matter that seemed unlikely to result in a sane, satisfying outcome. To invest my emotions in that one seemed like an unwise investment and I'm starting to feel like this presidential election is something I want to avoid, at least until it becomes unavoidable. I think Obama's going to win but, you know, there will be people voting against him because they have solid, inarguable proof that he's from the planet Remulak and each of their votes cancels out one by someone sane. I don't think I want to ride that roller coaster for that long.
I'll follow the election. You can't not follow the election. But just for my own sake, I don't think I want to think anything has much meaning until around Columbus Day.