Ed, Your article about Strategic Vision not being a legitimate polling operation is as skewed as your own internal current predictions and or projections of the allocation of the electoral vote. Most (45 out of 47) or (90% to 95%) of the prognosticators have Bush in the lead unless you are a Democrat. Ed, you are a two faced idiot. Sincerely, Mark

I'm thrilled! My first poison pen pal!

As it happens, as my new friend Mark cannot know, I just updated my own numbers last night after downloading a bunch of poll results, and many states changed status, so that I'm currently at Kerry 247 - Bush 291.

You see, with the survey I simply report what all these web sites are saying, and do the math, and report the averages, and summarize them to the best of my ability. Similarly, with my own prediction, I follow a methodology that's not a strict algorithm but does have rules that I adhere to. You can argue that my rules are bad or inadequate (which they quite possibly are), but I do indeed try to report the results they bring, whether they make me happy or not. My interest (and the reason I started making my own estimations and then began to do the survey) is to get as good a handle as I can on what's happening, and regardless of whether my candidate is ahead or behind, that's still what I want to know. I imagine that many of the other Electoral College trackers are motivated by the same impulse.

My objections to Strategic Vision's polling is based on how they appear to me to be skewed in relation to the polling of other organization, and my speculations about what the reason for that might be. I've seen enough to pretty much convince me it's deliberate, and, given the Republican history of dirty tricks in Presidential elections, I think that's a justifiable conclusion. Others will obviously differ, but simply holding that opinion doesn't, I think, disqualify me from making an estimate of the electoral college situation that's as objective as it's possible for me to be.

One last thing: I did say, and have said, that I thought last week's strong showing for Bush was the highwater mark of his campaign, and that Kerry would be doing better from now on. That was based on some poll results and my own updated numbers. But now, based on more polls, my own newest estimation, and a quick look at a few sites, I don't expect that to be the case. When I do the survey tonight or tomorrow, I fully expect Bush to be in at least the same position as he was last week, or perhaps stronger. As a supporter of Kerry, I certainly hope that isn't the case, but I'll report whatever results I find, whichever way they go.