Your Morning Dose Of Counterevidence

Is John McCain closing the gap? Has the media gotten it all wrong? Are we fools? Are we missing, or ignoring, evidence that supports Arlington's contentions?

1. Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal on the trackers: they look "mostly like random variation." He said mostly! Not entirely!   And then this:

You see a hint of a "narrowing" when comparing today's results to those reported a week ago, and even then the difference is slight.  Consider what our national trend looks like when filtered to include just the eight national tracking surveys.  This more apples-to-apples trend shows the slight narrowing that amounts mostly to a slight rise in the McCain percentage.

We've seen hints of narrowing for days and no actual narrowing.  McCain has a good 48 hours push the narrowing rocks over the cliff.

2. A new NBC News / Mason Dixon poll gives Barack Obama a four point lead in Pennsylvania.   (A new CNN poll gives him an eleven point lead.)

And there's this article, pointed out to us via First Read, from the Philadelphia Inquirer -- in Westmoreland County, there are 21 McCain yard signs in a neighborhood.  (Actually, the article makes a solid point about overstating the degree to which voter registration gaps matter in certain counties.)