I think Obama will need to have at a bare minimum, a 15% lead in all the polls to have a shot of beating McCain.

On the way to work this morning they were talking about how the polls may currently be skewed by people who are not supporting Obama, but don't want to appear to be racist.  When asked face to face or on the phone by a pollster, they say they are voting for Obama just so they don't appear to be racist.

Obviously there are going to be people who do that, but I didn't think it would be a significant percentage of people.  They pointed out a straw poll that AOL news does online each week where no pollster is involved.  Currently, for the poll running from August 4 to August 11, with 86,032 responses Obama has 30% compared to McCain's 70%.

http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/08/05/aol-straw-p oll-aug-4-11

Now it will really be interesting once they add the 3rd party candidates to the poll.

I've all but tuned out of the election at this time; frankly, I'm sick of hearing about both of them already.  But every so often a few news article or opinion piece will catch my eye.  I found it interesting that the last few I read were asking essentially the same question:  why, in a year when any Democrat should be trouncing any Republican in the polls, are Obama's numbers still largely within the margin of error?  It seems a lot of the Liberal pundits are starting to worry.

QUOTE: The bottom line: liberal pundits — following months of analysis by their conservative counterparts — had figured out that despite the best possible terrain for the Democrats to recapture the White House, the Democrats (with a whole lot of cheerleading from the mainstream media) have chosen a thinly experienced, irresolute, underachieving and obnoxious standard bearer. And his excuse-mongering just makes it all the more irritating.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/pundits-begin-to-worry-about-ob ama/

Online polls ... now those are reliable.

I agree.  It lets people give an honest answer without worrying what the person on the other end of the microphone/telephone thinks or where they are being interrupted by someone to take the poll.  At least online, the person isn't being intruded upon and this poll ise set up to prevent ballot box stuffing via automated programs and IP addresses.