I know many AT readers are sick of polls or worse, believe them to be rigged. Believe me, we understand. The horse race aspect to politics can be both confusing and disheartening. And, as we write constantly, many polls are in fact designed to elicit a specific result. We try and warn you when we believe that occurs but even those results say something about the state of the race.Campaigns do not use the kinds of polls we talk about here except in the grossest sense. Internal polling by campaigns goes much deeper than "yes or no" or which candidate the respondent supports. They generally deal with voter's perceptions - how they are feeling about the candidates, what disturbs them, what encourages them. The strategists then take this broad outline of America and craft a specific message, targeting the feelings of voters.Today, Gallup's daily tracking poll has Obama's lead shrinking from 6 to 4 over John McCain while Rasmussen has Obama up by 1. It is probable that once again,...(Read Full Post)