WARNING for the easily discouraged or nervous... [View All]

[regnaD kciN]

You may want to avoid FiveThirtyEight.com for a few days.

Explanations: Nate just got through crunching the numbers with a whole bunch more state polls that came out last week. In other words, these reflect McCain's convention bounce and are likely the high-water mark of his campaign, but, of course, Nate has to include them just as he would with any other recent polls (like the ones that came out after the Democratic convention bounce...except, due to the conventions being so close together, there were no state polls that came out after the Democratic convention bounce.

In any event, his simulations give the result one could expect: if the election were held the week after the G.O.P. convention, the result would not be good for our side. (Fortunately for us, of course, the election isn't being held the week after the G.O.P. convention.)

But, for those of you who get easily depressed or prone to "the sky is falling!" moods, it probably would be the wisest to stay away from that place (along with RCP and Electoral-Vote.com) for a week or maybe two, until things have stabilized a bit. Morale is important in a presidential campaign, and premature doomsaying based on skewed-by-convention-bounce polling numbers can only hurt Obama.

(Note: I'm not saying everyone should avoid those sites, but if you're prone to panicking or even worrying too much, just wait a bit and realize that the numbers game will be better for us then.)