ME and Ophelia

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BUSH IS AHEAD OF KERRY - AND LEADS IN HAWAII?
The Spectator magazine started in 1828

"What’s up with Hawaii? Two polls in two Honolulu newspapers over the weekend showed George W. Bush with a small lead over John Kerry. That’s not supposed to be happening. Hawaii’s solidly Democrat." writes Mark Steyn over at the Spectator, Britain's longest running magazine - now run by the infamous Boris Johnson who recently started a quasi blog. Excerpt from the article:

Last week the pollsters at Harris released their latest findings in two versions. Using the model of likely voters that proved accurate in 2000, Bush led Kerry by 51 to 43. However, if you discard that model and use some new model factoring in a lot of folks who didn’t bother to vote in 2000, Bush leads Kerry only by 48 to 46. Which is accurate? The first? The second? Neither? Harris can’t say. Is there a third model that shows Kerry leading by 73 to 26? Doubtful. If there was, some pollster would surely have come up with it by now. Maybe some other model entirely is the one to use, but it seems unlikely any one will devise it before next Tuesday.

So my hunch that that first Harris poll is the correct one is only that — a hunch that Bush is ahead outside the margin of error. Unfortunately, on election day, he also has to be ahead outside the margin of lawyer, which is a tougher call. The Democrats already have thousands of chad-chasers circling the courthouses in Florida, Ohio, New Mexico and even New Hampshire, alas. It’s important for Bush to win big enough both to compensate for Democrat fraud and to deter litigation. Full Story
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Note, in the above article, readers get to vote: "Do you agree with the argument put forward in this article?" The poll results so far show: Yes 92% - No 8%

The Spectator magazine, established in 1828, says it's the oldest continuously published magazine in the English language - and that the best British journalists, critics, authors and cartoonists turn out their best work for the magazine, to produce an extraordinarily wide-ranging title.

Today's Scotsman says Bin Laden's intervention may be dominating the airwaves, but four opinion polls say result is still too close to call. See Eric's Have your Say on Bin Laden.

[Spectator link via Instapundit]