Good news on many fronts

Take a look at this summary of polls on Real Clear Politics: Bush is up in virtually every one, and has been since about the third week of August!

More good news:

The University of Wisconsin - Madison had a mock election, and Bush won (51% to about 45% for Kerry, with Nader pulling a pretty high 4%). I called one of the organizers on the phone; she confirmed that Bush won, and said she was surprised by that result, just as I was. UW-Madison is a pretty liberal place.

Talked to the local GOP Victory Headquarters today: They are swamped with volunteers, by the thousands, especially college students and minorities. But that doesn't mean they don't need each and every one of us -- so call if you haven't yet offered to help your local GOP office!

An aunt on my husband's side emailed me; said she and her husband recently took a Bus Tour to Washington DC, and she "suggested to the group leader that they poll the bus re the election. There were 37 passengers of whom 17 voted for Bush, 14 for Kerry, 1 for Nader, 2 undecided and 3 didn't vote at all." Just taking those who voted (assuming the others wouldn't go to the polls on Election Day anyway), that's 53% for Bush, 44% for Kerry, less than 1% for Nader. Sounds about right to me. (Thanks for the info, Aunt R., and good idea!!)

All in all, I'm sticking with what I said in my first post on this blog.

UPDATE: Just a reminder, though: Don't trust the polls very much. Bush was up by 10% in Wisconsin the week before the last election, and he ended up losing the state by about 5,000 votes. Fraud? No doubt. Bad polls? Could be. Result of the Dems' last minute dredging up of Bush's DWI? Probably, in part.

So don't trust the polls too much, even though they're encouraging right now. Just get out there and work.

UPDATE: But I can't resist: via Drudge, a new CNN/USA TODAY/GALLUP POLL has Bush up by 8 among likely voters.

Also, locally, my husband's been keeping a tally of the yard signs. Bush signs outnumber Kerry signs in the neighborhood by 10 to 1. No surprise; we're in a very Republican suburb. But even outside of the neighborhood, heading toward the more Democratic part of the city, Bush signs lead, 20 to 5. Now, signs aren't everything, of course, and maybe they're close to nothing in terms of predictive power, but they're interesting, that's for sure.