mCAIN GAINED 1PT.
Obama lost 2 pts
1 pt went to undecided.

Do you even think that is a Statistically SIGNIFICANT Difference? What is the error on those polls?
I see those polls and though I see a trend, I don't think I see a statistically significant trend, and is likely mostly attributable to error in the the estimates.

This is bad reporting. Irresponsible.

The margin of error is +/- 3%.

Belonsky is a moron.

This is exactly why we should be concerned about the "vetting" process. When Clinton says she has been fully vetted…she means that every single bit of trash that could be brought out on her…HAS ALREADY been brought out. I love Obama too, but get ready for his vetting process to just begin when he gets the nomination.

I am baffled at McCain's high numbers. He reminds me of one of those old old men that they drag out during an Emmy or Oscar telecast and he mumbles own and people applaud even though they didn't understand a word the man says.

I would be interested to know what the standard deviation is on this poll and what the exact questions asked were; how big the sample size was, etc. The numbers are far too close to say with any kind of certainty who is beating whom, especially when Obama isn't the nominee yet.

Obama will never beat McCain once the Republican machine starts its "Tet offensive."

I predict a landslide for McCain especially if the economy has any serious issues. So far out of my 10 close friends that always vote Democrat(6 Straight, 4 Gay) 7 have said they will vote for McCain over Obama which includes all of my Gay friends. I know I will vote for McCain over Obama. He is too inexperienced given the potential mess in the Middle East and secondly he is on the verge of being a Socialist.

Most Americans are centrist independents. McCain is an independent's wet-dream of a president. He's such a centrist independent himself. He'll trounce Obama in the general election.

Nice, Queerty….quote a conservative, Christian, Republican poll for results on an election poll and fail to mention the probable slant.

Obama will likely be the Democratic nominee. Any stoopid queers that vote Republican get what they deserve.

I knew it was too good to be true when the Democrats trotted out a female and a black guy in 2007 (and the polls showed both of them winning by huge margins).

This backward ass country will pick fear over hope every time. And isn't it curious that Obama's sudden drop hasn't changed the congressional races at all. CQ still has the Democratic Congress returning to power with at least 231 seats in the House and 53 seats in the Senate. This, despite the fact that they have an 11% approval rating.

White America, you suck.

There is a factor I never see in these sorts of polls. Sure Republicans by and large are going to vote for McCain even if they don't like him. But look at the difference in numbers of Republicans vs. Democrats thus far in the primaries and caucuses. It's been north of 2-to-1 in almost every contest.

If Democrats turn out like that in the fall, and if Republicans stay home, it won't matter how close this type of poll looks right now. It'll be a blow-out.

McCain is just continuing the perversity of the Bush regime so most of the people voting for him will just be the nut jobs with hawk and religious raver agendas.

Whoever imagibnes that Mc Cain wiould be better for the Economy needs a brain job: Bush and the Republicands before him are solely responsible for ruining our economy. The last time that we had a doable debt was when Clinton was pres. Betweem Nixon, Reagan, and Bush , they have ruined american beyond belief.

Whoever said that Obama was a Socialist needs to go back to grade school economics. We havn't had a candidate even approaching Socialism since never. This is the most extrmely right wing country since Hitler and Franco.

Learn something before you try thinking.

The most notable groups I've seen are a remant of Rovian a mismatching of incoherant fools: religious Blacks who hate fags and old white racists farts along with the greedy pigs who own stock in Exxon Mobile, Behtel, Halburton and don't give a flying fuck about anybody who plans to still live in another 20 years. Or maybe a group of wealthy bimbos making personal space stations on which they can vacate.

As you recall Rasmussen was claiming that Hillary had a big lead over Obama: see what happened. I looked up this polling method, out of curiousity: it's called a Zogby method and you can't make valid inferences about the population from which it is drawn:

A Rutgers Univ poly sci polling expert Cliff Zukin claims that the Rassmussen polls are pretty worthless; he says:

"The Zogby(i.e.Rasmussen) stuff, on scientific grounds, is quite questionable. Online, Internet, opt-in polling, where people volunteer to be respondents, doesn’t really have a basis in scientific validity… When everybody has a known chance of being selected, you can make pretty valid inferences about the population from which it is drawn' i.e. you get pretty much what you anticipate.

Don't like to be a spoil sport, but you've probablyy seen that in movies, it's just bad science used to manipulate people.

John Kerry polled 10% ahead of George W. Bush at this time during the last election — yet managed to lose rather handily in the popular AND electoral college votes.

If anything, it looks like Obama is in a weaker position in most of the key swing states than Kerry, and would be representing a more fractured and fragmented party due to his scorched-earth-with-a-smile campaign tactics.

Where's the trend in those numbers? On 2/17 Obama is two percentage points ahead, and on 2/29 Obama is one point behind. But on 2/25 and 2/26 McCain had a four-point edge, and the percent supporting McCain was two points higher than on the 28th. So, if anything in the last week of the polls, McCain's edge was diminishing.
But this sort of analysis is as ridiculous as the one in the intial post because, as other's have pointed out, the diffrence's are not statistically significant (i.e., they could easily be due to sample error and not due to any real difference among the voters as a whole). Moreover, you can't discern long-term trends from two-weeks of polling data eight months before an election. A lot more can — and will — happen between now and November to affect the outcome, and it will outweigh any trend you might see in the numbers over the last two weeks.
I understand the concern about the electibility of either of the two possible nominees of the Democratic Party, but I am encouraged by the fact that the number of people voting in the Democratic primaries dwarfs the numbers voting in the Republican contests. And Republicans clearly are not enthusiastic about McCain. Independents may like McCain, but they also like Obama. The election will prohably be close, but there are plenty of reasons to believe that any Democratic on the ballot is in far better shape than either Gore or Kerry — both of whom were poor campaigners. There are plenty of other reasons to be optimistic.
P.S. Ramsmussen is perhaps the polling organization that is most biased toward Republicans, and their track-record lately has been particularly poor.