[whack whack whack]

That's the sound of me whacking my forehead on my desk.

Sometimes I want to switch to the Republican party merely because they don't run around like chickens with their heads cut off every time their candidate drops a point or two in a poll.

Democrats have this amazing ability to focus on negative news and ignore positive news. This is a conversation I had two weeks ago, and have a version of almost every day:

ME: Kerry is in pretty good shape for a challenger.
FRIEND: I don't know. It doesn't look like he's doing well. He's tied in Maryland.
ME: What are you talking about? He's up by 15.

[whack whack whack]

Or take the two conversations I had today with my Mom and my roommate, both of whom said "I heard Kerry dropped a lot in the polls," didn't remember any details about what they heard, and have never, ever once said to me, "I heard Kerry is going better in the polls."

The poll they were talking about is the Gallup Poll, which has Bush up 8 among likely voters and up 3 among registered voters. My meesage for everyone is, if you are going to freak out, at least have a good reason for freaking out. Learn about the difference between likely voters and registered voters. Take a look at a list of recent polls, all of which have been showing a statistical tie for the past few weeks except for one certain poll. Get a sense of perspective by remembering that, four years ago today, Gallup had Gore behind Bush among likely voters by 13 points.

The only time polls come close to predicting the actual result of a race is a few days before election day when undecided voters choose a candidate and the many unknowns that polls are based on become more stable. Until then, take a break from worrying. It's not going to improve anything.