Electoral college poll leaning slightly towards Obama, 273 to 265

As most of us know, the popular vote does not determine who becomes president and the overall national polls map to the popular vote, not the electoral college votes. But RealCearPolitics does have a map of the comparable electoral college vote based on the state-by-state polls. Currently, the map shows Obama with 164 solid electoral college votes and McCain with 163. Obama has 38 leaning votes to McCain's 26. The remaining 147 electoral votes are toss-ups. Excluding tossups, Obama has 202, McCain 189. Including toss-ups, Obama has 273 and McCain 265. That is the bottom line, Obama has a very slim lead in the total tally.

Some people say that Ohio represents the entire country. The map shows Ohio as a toss-up, with McCain slightly ahead by 1.6%.

The real clear bottom line is that this election is not a slam-dunk for either candidate.

Obama has a potential advantage in that his team is really good at registering new voters and reaching out to young voters, many of whom do not have traditional phones so they would not show up in traditional polling. He may in fact currently have a 2% to 5% advantage that the polls cannot see. Obama also has the advantage of opposing the war in Iraq (and planning to get out ASAP) and a crummy economy and poor financial regulatory oversight. McCain's primary advantage is simply that most sane people do not trust non-centrist Democrats with either defense or the economy. Obama may have plans, but they do not have credibility with many people.

-- Jack Krupansky