Ground Control to Major Tom

Over the last few days, voters across the nation have gotten "the call" from John McCain-- no, not asking them to serve as McCain's VP pick, though Lord knows he needs a new one. The one informing them that you "need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans." Lovely. There's also another one that tries to hit on the old "Obama is a Hollywood celebrity" idea. Do we have to have Paris Hilton make yet another video, John??? Now it comes out that McCain is using Feather, Hodges, Larson & Synhorst to make those calls, the same firm for robo-calling that was used AGAINST him in 2004. HuffPo has a good roundup of links here, including one in which McCain condemns the robo-call practice.

Another article on the cell phone phenomenon and how the opinions of younger voters wind up being underplayed in national polls as a result. "According to the estimates compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, by the last six months of 2007, 14.5 percent of all adults were living in households that could only be reached by a cell phone, a number that had more than tripled (from 4.4 percent) since 2004. Younger Americans especially are out of reach. Mining the same NCHS study, the Pew Research Center reports that nearly a third (30.6 percent) of 18-to-24-year-olds can be reached only by cell phone....A few weeks ago, blogger Nate Silver compared the house effects of national polls that have been interviewing by cell phone with those that have not. He found that including cell phone interviews appeared to improve Obama's standing by 2 to 3 percentage points on the margin."

Before you even start to get upset about the poll numbers tightening, "That's what happens at the end of campaigns," Obama said on the Today Show this morning. "Even when there are substantial leads. And in each of these battleground states, you've got a lot of close races. One of the messages that I've had to my team is that we don't let up. We do not let up."

And Joe Biden echoes his running mate's thoughts: "Anyone who tells you this election is already decided is dead wrong. Let's not forget the 2000 election, when Al Gore was up by double digits in October. The surest way to lose a race is to slow down with the finish line in sight. We're taking no chances. We've planned the biggest get out the vote operation in history, and we need to make sure that every voter has their voice heard."

Joe's right, although a look at that 2004 Electoral vote graph show also how tight and how volatile that race was. Not that I'm sayin' we should get cocky, but this year, Obama the majority of the time with a lead over McCain.

2004:

2008: