Yesterday Carnacki highlighted polling from the generally unreliable American Research Group showing Barack Obama leading in West Virginia by a 50 percent to 42 percent margin. While I think there's no way the race actually looks like that -- if you take ARG polling out of the mix, John McCain leads in the state by a 47.5 percent to 40.8 percent margin -- there are some indications that the state is closer than many believed it would be. However, even more important than the polling is the make up of the group believing the state to be in play -- a group that apparently includes the McCain campaign.

n what may be another signal that the troubled economy is forcing John McCain's campaign to play electoral map defense, Sarah Palin has scheduled a bus tour for Sunday through West Virginia, a state that's been leaning red throughout this presidential race.

Palin had already scheduled a bus tour of Pennsylvania on Saturday, but she will now repeat that act on Sunday by making various unannounced stops throughout West Virginia, culminating in a campaign event in southeast Ohio. It's a swing geographically reminiscent of Hillary Clinton's effort during the Democratic primary to court white working class voters in Appalachia. Clinton won the West Virginia primary over Barack Obama by a whopping 67-26 margin.

If you had told me two weeks ago, two months ago, or even two years ago that the Republican Vice Presidential nominee was going to be campaigning in West Virginia three weeks out from election day, I wouldn't have believed you for a second. First of all, if the GOP ticket was hitting the hustings in West Virginia, that would mean that the marginally blue states basically weren't in play, and that even the states that have been close but have swung towards the Republicans in recent years were moving too close to the Democratic column.

But beyond that, there aren't a whole lot of states in the nation that are trending away from the Democrats and towards the Republicans, but West Virginia has sure looked like one of them, going from a comfortable 51.5 percent to 36.8 percent win for Bill Clinton in 1996 to a comfortable 56.0 percent to 43.2 percent win for George W. Bush in 2004. What's more, the chattering class quickly settled on the narrative following Hillary Clinton's big win in the West Virginia primary in May that there was no way that Obama could carry the state in the general election. But it increasingly looks like the conventional wisdom was wrong and West Virginia is in play.

There's more...