I told yah so!

First of all, a new poll from George Washington University shows President Bush with a slight lead over John Kerry. In the new poll, which was conducted from September 12th - 16th, George Bush is ahead with 49 percent to John Kerry's 45 percent, with a 3.1 margin of error.

Nothing to see here folks, overall, Bush has been either slightly ahead of Kerry or neck and neck. But the interesting thing is the shift that has been happening within individual states - take a looksie at the electoral vote count here. New state polls - including ones in Florida and New Jersey, have put Kerry back above Bush for the electoral vote, for now. Now Kerry is the one who is holding a tiny lead in several key states, not Bush. I expect it to shift back and forth several times before the election.

Note that neither candidate has the required 270 electoral votes they would need to carry the actual election. You might ask, why is this number 270? Or, you might not ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway. If this explanation is too much for you, I'll try to lay it out as simple as possible:
There are 538 electoral votes up for grabs, based on state population. A candidate needs 270 of them, a majority, to actually win.

The funny thing is, that while some states have their own laws governing electors, nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it say that they have to put their electoral vote towards the winner of the popular vote in their state. Not that this happens very often, but there is nothing preventing electors (well, besides honor and righteousness) from certain states from just putting their vote towards anybody they liked.

Weird, huh? Well, don't blame me, blame that wacky U.S. Constitution.