Heck, it's Texas.  If we don't like the redistricting in 2011, we can do it in 2013, and 2015, and 2017?  Tom DeLay said so!

Um..., I actually knew that once.

Wish Todd would fix that.  Anyway the trend is Obama upward 39-41, McCain downward, 48-45.  A nine-point lead cut in half.

I think the MOE in these Quinnipiac polls are only about 2.5-2.6%.  So all are outside, if I remember right.

Well, so lots of crap gets "circulated."  If everybody's going to get high blood pressure about every video that's sent around in June, it's going to be a long season.  It's lamentable, but it's not going to be worth anything in November.

I'd still be interested to know on what basis Illinois was ever given to McCain.  In what world would such a poll be credible?

Suddenly, in the last 10 minutes, Illinois has flipped back to Obama!!!  Amazing!!  Sorta does undermine the whole project, though.

What poll is currently giving Illinois (of all places) to McCain over Obama?????

That's just nuts.

The current map gives Illinois to McCain.

I suggest ignoring the whole thing as a safe methodology.

Good point.  I suspect that the exit polls are not reliable on this, and that Jerome is leaning too heavily on bad data.  I mean, for one thing, what's the margin of error in polling the relatively small subset of late deciders?  Pretty big, I bet.

As I note above, I think there's a real flaw in Jerome's analysis.  If he thinks that the gas tax argument worked and got Hillary all those "late deciders,"  then he must think that she was way behind in the two weeks or so earlier, when, in fact, the polls showed her well ahead.  

I think Hillary made a really stupid choice, but one characteristic of Clinton campaigning, in adopting McCain's pander, and that the folks in Indiana didn't buy it.

Well then, I really have to wonder if the numbers you cite are correct?  They're only from exit polls, right?  Assuming they are, would someone please explain why Hillary appeared to be much farther ahead in the week or two before the primary?  I mean, she won by less than 20,000 votes, right?  Is it plausible that she eked this victory out only by getting substantial majorities of late-deciders?  I think that makes no sense at all.

As I recall what the real polls showed, she was well ahead when the gas tax business became the focus of the campaign (along with J. Wright, of course).  Then something happened, and she won only by a few thousand votes.  I cannot believe that the gas tax proposal gained her votes, because if it did, in the weeks before the primary, she must have been well behind Obama.

Like I say, your analysis makes not historical sense, and is doubtless an artifact of the quite fallible exit polls.

Look, the line you criticize is right, not as a logical matter, but as an empirical one.  Most late deciders are in fact low information voters and most go for Clinton.  This does not preclude, as you indicate, that some high information voters do not decide who to vote for until late in the game.  The fact is, however, that they are relatively rare among late deciders.

Agreed.  Very decent, Todd.