* Jay Cost analyzes the polls: a group of undecided voters will probably be decisive

Real Clear Politics has posted an article by Jay Cost that presents an excellent analysis of the national poll results (not the state by state positions that will actually determine who wins) …

• I’ve broken the national polling into two sorting categories. First, we sort by pollster. We group the Gallup polls together, then the Rasmussen polls, then the remaining polls.
• We see remarkable stability. Contrary to what one might think if one’s only source for information was the political class – there has not been a lot of movement. The movement we have seen seems to have been pretty orderly – with McCain solidifying his Republican base.
• We also see a group of undecided voters who have not yet made a choice. They will probably be decisive. In a race with only two salient candidates – the goal is to hit 50%-plus-one. Both McCain and Obama can still do that via the undecided voters, who are becoming the critical voting block.
• My intuition is that this group is going to sort itself out late. I’d guess that they are the true independents, i.e. those without strong party attachments. I’d also wager that they have not been paying a lot of attention yet. The debates might move them, but I wouldn’t be surprised if these folks sort themselves out in late October.

Read the entire article and look at the numbers at … http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2008/09/the_state_of_the_race.html