Closer

Despite the mainstream media's portrayal of the race, that Barack is running away with it, the polls we've been watching for months continue to tighten. Rasmussen moved to a 4% Obama lead today, and Gallups likely voter numbers have pulled even tighter.

The "traditional" likely voter model, which Gallup has employed for past elections, factors in prior voting behavior as well as current voting intention. This has generally shown a closer contest, reflecting the fact that Republicans have typically been more likely to vote than Democrats in previous elections. Today's results show Obama with a two-point advantage over McCain using this likely voter model, 49% to 47%, this is within the poll's margin of error.

Zogby has moved in the other direction.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama has a 5-point lead over Republican John McCain in the U.S. presidential race, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/ZOGBY poll released on Thursday.

Obama leads McCain by 49 percent to 44 percent among likely U.S. voters in the latest four-day tracking poll, up slightly from a 4-point lead on Wednesday. The poll has a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

These numbers were collected in advance of last night's debate, for the most part.

Barack the Listener

One of Barack's reputed attributes that makes the elites drool over him is his ability to listen.

It’s the ears. I mean, it’s not literally his ears. It’s the idea of his ears. Barack Obama has the capacity to listen. And America needs nothing more now than a president who knows how to listen.

Being a good listener is indicative of a thinker. Brains and compassion first, ego second. The antithesis of W.

Barack Obama is unique in a wide field of Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls in that he doesn’t just talk the talk. He has spent his entire career listening the listen, from his work as a community organizer to his current job as the junior Senator from Illinois.

So watch the listener in action - with none other than Joe the Plumber.

The One

The McCain Campaign has issued a new online ad mocking Barack, this time focusing on the perception that he's high on himself. Called "The One," it's not all that clever, but it does make a point that, over time, could come to haunt the Chosen One.

Poor Michelle

Barack is engaging in the old kinda politics again, trying to create standard left/right polarity - the opposite of trying to bring us together.

Senator Obama is blaming the news media — and especially FOX News — for Michelle Obama's high negative ratings. Just under 30 percent of those polled had an unfavorable view of Michelle Obama in our last FOX News/Opinion Dynamics poll. A Rasmussen Reports poll last month put her unfavorable rating at 42 percent.

Ya, the Obamas are victims! It's not their fault that they let Michelle go out onto the campaign trail and talk about how the U.S. isn't a very nice place.

Obama tells Glamour magazine that political spouses should be off-limits. He says the "conservative press — FOX News... went fairly deliberately at her in a pretty systematic way... spouses are civilians. They didn't sign up for this."

Some do, and some don't. Those that advertise their disdain for the country are at the top of the sign up list. Those that mind their business and stay in the background, like Cindy McCain, they have a bigger right to be left alone.

Though Obama failed to mention it, his wife has made a number of official campaign stops with him and has even campaigned for him on her own.

When you're a practitioner of the old fashioned politics, being forthright isn't part of the equation. He's just looking for the wedge.

Obama then added, "If you start being subjected to rants by Sean Hannity and the like, day in day out, that'll drive up your negatives."

There's a safe bet for mobilizing liberals - bring out the old demon Sean Hannity.

But the recent Newsweek poll shows that Michelle is doing just fine with voters, despite her comments on her country, so this whole thing is just posturing, anyway. Making Barack look like a tough, protective patriarch. Who's going to think ill of him for doing a little Harry Truman routine?

The Newsweek poll found that voters thought Obama would make a better First Lady than McCain by a 31% to 25% margin.

That surprising figure suggests a possible reversal in a trend that has favored more traditional, Republican First Ladies. At this point in the 1996 campaign, voters preferred Elizabeth Dole over Hillary Clinton by 14points, and in 2004, they preferred Laura Bush over Teresa Heinz Kerry by 20 points.

Listen in as Kevin Whalen (Pundit Review) and I recap Barack's amazing foreign policy week, and ask the question: Doesn't the phrase "Barack's amazing foreign policy week" mean this is a great period for the campaign of John McCain?