Undecided Wars: Bill McInturff Responds To Stan Greenberg

John McCain's chief pollster, Bill McInturff, responds via e-mail to Stan Greenberg:

I went on Real Clear Politics tonight to find these two headlines back-to-back.

CBS/NYT:  Obama up comfortably
FOX:   Race tightens significantly

No wonder people can be confused about the status of this campaign.  

I am weighting African Americans to census +1%.  I am weighting young voters to be at least 16% of the turn-out.   With those weights, I have seen the race tighten since last week.

If we were betting on the spread of a football game, I will let Stan take the CBS/NYT's poll's margins.

I believe we live in a world much closer to the Fox results.

While Stan knows the outcome of Tuesday's election, my point is simple:  I believe it is not yet determined.  In fact, unlike Stan, I believe the race could still change -- either by moving back in Senator Obama's direction or continuing to tighten between now and election day.

It won't take long now to find out which one is the closer representation of this election --- Stan and the CBS/NYT's or a much tighter campaign like the one we are watching develop in the Fox data released today.

Stan and I are good friends and cohorts and our friendship will certainly withstand this disagreement, but, finally, having had the great good fortune of working for John McCain on three Senate campaigns and now two presidential campaigns, here are two things I ALSO know for sure:  1) John McCain is a hard man to kill and I am the least surprised guy in the country that with even the smallest window of opportunity--as the focus on the financial crisis faded a bit--that he could make up ground and 2) the difference between these two candidates in terms of their preparation and capacity to serve as Commander-in-Chief is  profound, to McCain's considerable advantage, and that matters to the remaining voters here in the last few days of this election.

Bill