I've been polling the polls some more. Out today were the latest updates from CNN/USA Today/Gallup (weekly) and Reuters/Zogby (daily updates). I would regard Gallup and Zogby as the two preeminent political polling firms in the country. Gallup has it 49-47 Bush and Zogby 48-48 even. The real differences are in their state polling. In particular, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

In Iowa, Gallup has Bush up by 2 while Zogby has Kerry up by 6 - a spread of 8 points.

In Ohio, Gallup has Kerry up by 4 while Zogby has Bush up by 4 - a spread of 8 points.

In Pennsylvania, Gallup has Bush up by 4 while Zogby has Kerry up by 5 - a spread of 9 points.

In Wisconsin, Gallup has Bush up by 8 ponts while Zogby has Kerry up by 7 - a spread of 15 points.

What's going on here? Someone is doing something wrong. An 8 point differential in their projections is bad enough, but 15 in Wisconsin!

I was surprised that both of them had Kerry up in Florida. A week from now I will post the results in the four states above and present notsailing.blogspot.com's best pollster award.

Three days until the election. My thousands of readers know my views. I'm a big Kerry supporter (although I haven't written any checks). I made a foolish decision four years ago when I voted for George W. Bush. I thought I was voting for his father. George W. lied to us about being a great uniter, he lied to us about weapons of mass destruction and practically every other justification for the Iraq invasion, and he cooked the books on Medicare prescription drugs. He has increased our risk of terrorist attacks by his arrogance. Arrogance breeds contempt. In the past, most of our enemies at least respected us; now they just hate us. I could go on for pages.

But what is going to happen? I was struck today by two entirely different polling projections. First Newsweek.

Oct. 30 - After months of the tightest presidential election contest in recent memory, a new NEWSWEEK poll suggests momentum may be moving toward President George W. Bush. As the bitter campaign enters its final days, against the eerie backdrop of a surprise appearance by Osama Bin Laden, Bush’s lead is still within the poll’s margin of error, but larger than last week. If the election were held today, 50 percent of likely voters would cast ballots for Bush and 44 percent for the Democrat, Sen. John Kerry. (Ralph Nader would receive 1 percent.) That compares to a Bush lead last week among likely voters of 48 percent to Kerry's 46 percent.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6367631/site/newsweek/

And then, Reuters/Zogby

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Sen. John Kerry moved into a one-point lead over President Bush nationally and had the edge in six key battleground states in a tight White House race, according to Reuters/Zogby polls released on Saturday.
Kerry led Bush 47-46 percent, well within the margin of error, in the latest three-day national tracking poll. Bush and Kerry were tied at 47 percent on Friday. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041030/us_nm/campaign_poll_saturday_dc_6

John Zogby believes Kerry will win according to an interview with Sidney Zion published in the New York Daily News yesterday.

Pollster John Zogby, in a telephone interview with me yesterday, predicted that John Kerry will win the election. "It's close," he said, "but in the last couple of days things have been trending toward Kerry - nationally and in the swing states. Between this and history, I think it will be Kerry."
When Zogby talks, politicians listen. He made his bones in the Bill Clinton-Bob Dole election of 1996, when he came within one-tenth of a percentage point of the final tally. http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/247447p-211694c.html

There was an interesting article in the New Yorker about Zogby a couple of weeks ago. I think he knows what he's talking about. I sure hope he's right. If he is, Newsweek should figure out another way to sell magazines. Newsweek is owned by the Washington Post Company. Interestingly, The Post's daily tracking poll has Bush and Kerry within a point.

The Red Sox won! The Red Sox won!

Our baseball routine before bedtime has come to a halt. We let the boys watch the first inning before bed. The Red Sox were always ahead early, so they went to sleep believing victory was assured, and they were always proved right. Amazing. I've been boycotting the Sox since 1986. Bill Buckner, you are forgiven.

Tomorrow we plan to go to a Brown hockey game. On to the next sport.

So the Red Sox are in the World Series. The boys have enjoyed playing ball but have ignored it on TV, until just the last week. Skipper especially has progressed rapidly in learning the rules and no longer says "Cartoons Dad" when the Red Sox are playing the evil Yankees. Sarah is excited too but uninformed. Two days ago she was telling Skipper that with two more wins the Red Sox would win the World Series. "No mom." said Skipper "If they win two more games they'll be in the World Series." He had it right; she had it wrong.

On Columbus Day we went to a farm with some friends of Skipper and Hank. The farm had a hay ride pulled by a tractor which took you to a harvested corn field in which a maze had been cut. Great fun getting lost. Outside the maze were thousands of pumpkins. We purchased one for each of the boys. Back at the farmhouse and barn, we ate crisp french fries freshly cut from recently harvested potatoes.

There were port a johns across the parking lot. The johns were located at the edge of a raspberry patch encompassing most of an acre. While the tinkling was going on, I did some exploring and found that the vines furthest from the parking lot were filled with raspberries. The boys and their friends and mothers joined me, and we spent most of an hour eating raspberries, picking kernels off dried corn husks and hiding and playing amongst the rows of raspberries.

My mother brought it to my attention that evening that raspberries are the only crop in our climate that produces two harvesting periods. Once in June, and a smaller crop in October.

Not much going on. Hank bought a Batman outfit for Halloween last weekend and he has been wearing it every day since. The neighbors feel very safe. Last night he was playing with a plastic Batman doll in the tub. Skipper walked in to the bathroom and watched him. "Hank" he said "is that Batman wetable?" "No batteries." said Hank.

Hank's Nursery School had a yard sale at a nearby park this morning. We went and had a good time. The boys played with children they knew and Sarah and I chatted with people we have come to know from Hank and Skipper's schools. Hank bought a plastic dragster for 25 cents. It runs on friction and was very fast. There was a little battery compartment on the back. The batteries power the headlights and taillights. Sarah opened the battery compartment on the back and noted that it required two round disk A76 batteries instead of the usual triple As.

Later in the day, Hank and I walked and strolled to the nearest CVS. Sarah asked us to get her a latte at the Starbucks across the street from the CVS on our journey. A76 batteries are $4 each. While we were getting the $3 Latte, Hank noticed a chocolate chip cookie covered with M&M s for $1.65 that he just had to have but never ate. Total cost of equipping the 25 cent dragster - $13.23 plus 25 cents for the dragster for a grand total of $13.48. What a deal! What a steal!