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I guess I can't hold off any longer. Though I am still sick to high heaven of all forms of politics, even those conducted by the humane and svelte Martin Sheen, this race has been getting very interesting the last couple of days. By couple I mean since whenever that large group of Americans who treated the RNC like the Sermon on the Mount came to their senses.

Once again I've been referencing the very good electoral-vote.com for my bi-daily dose of electoral what-nots. The work and analysis is fastidious and consistently impressive. The site is even-handed, but does seem to trend a little Bush-heavy compared with other sites I've seen. This only makes what I'm seeing all the more interesting.

Disregard the bold numbers up top, they swing more wildly than the mood of an abusive John Travolta in Urban Cowboy. Those "barely" states are essentially dead heats. If a candidate has a lead that is smaller than the statistical margin of error, it's no kind of lead at all. Flip through a few days and you'll see this. Wisconsin went from barely Kerry to weak Bush between Saturday and Monday. Useless really.

What is interesting, though, is the post-debate bible-belt trending. Some of the states that have, for months, shown a fondness for our Lay Preacher in Chief are slipping further into the undecided realm. Here are some examples from the month: Oct 12th, 16th, 18th, and yesterday.

Suddenly that swath of red from Georgia to Idaho isn't looking as much like a united heartland as as it is mottled and conflicted. Between the 12th an 19th, The number of electoral votes for which Bush held a 10 point or greater lead slipped from 148 to 138, which might not be a good sign for a campaign that is focusing on its base to drive voter turnout. These have been very solid states for Bush.

In the last four days (16th-19th), the number of votes Bush holds by a greater than 5% but less than 10% margin has fallen from 84 to 45.

That's beginning to feel significant.

Moreso when you compare it to Kerry-friendly states over the same period. States in which he enjoys a greater than 10% lead have leapt from 88 to 103 in the last four days. "Weak" Kerry states have increased from 91 to 125 electoral votes since the 12th.

This might be the payoff of that play-from-behind strategy Kerry has done well in the past. It may simply be an insignificant correction in what has been a steady decline for Kerry since his July and August highs.

However, with the day of days approaching--and in a race this tight--an insignificant correction might be enough to carry the White House.

There's another interesting tidbit I heard for the first time last night, and actually on a variety of channels. Traditionally, and this goes not just for presidential races, but for senatorial and state-level races as well, whatever numbers the incumbent has in the day leading up to the election are the numbers he/she will end with. "Overwhelmingly" was a word used. To within 1%.

That means, if history bears out, as it almost always occassionally does, those still undecided by November 1st will turn out for Kerry if they turn out at all.

Bush's nation-wide numbers right now are around 45-47%, Nader has around 1%. If things stay this way through the 1st, Kerry has to like his chances.

There was also an article in Slate (which I've lost, sorry) that showed a majority of those polled could not differentiate, didn't know or just flat out got wrong both candidate's stances on pretty much everything. They expect Bush to tax the wealthy and Kerry to support faith-based schools, proving once again the only thing anyone can say for certainty about the outcome of this election cycle: no matter who wins, we're still a country of uninformed morons.