RETURN TO COMMON SENSE – AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  We've had a lot of wild polls recently, given great publicity by the our-love-for-Obama-never-dies media, showing Obama trouncing Mitt Romney.  We've cautioned that these polls are contradicted by the daily trackers of both Rasmussen and Gallup, showing essentially a dead heat.

Now a new national poll confirms the trackers, and may start the process of bringing us back to some common sense in discussing polling.  From The Politico:

The race for the White House remained in a dead heat just before Mitt Romney announced Paul Ryan as his running mate, a new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground poll finds.

The poll, conducted in the days leading up to the Ryan announcement on Saturday, finds that despite the unprecedented millions of dollars being poured into the contest and the non-stop attacks from each side, the top line numbers are essentially unchanged from a previous Battleground poll in early May.

Obama takes 48 percent of likely voters in the new poll, compared with 47 percent for Romney – a statistical tie and well within the margin of error. In May, the numbers were flipped: Romney was at 48 percent and Obama was at 47 percent. The poll found 5 percent of voters are undecided.

COMMENT:  That pretty much aligns with the daily tracking polls.  Most political professionals also agree that it's a very close race, which can go either way.

When you see the rapid pace at which the Obamans are campaigning, you also get the sense that their internal polling shows a tight race. 

We'll be looking at trackers toward the middle of the week to see if the Ryan selection has any immediate effect.

August 13,  2012