IS ROMNEY GOING TO WIN THIS THING? I STILL DOUBT IT, BUT...

Yeah, Mitt Romney has pulled out to a three-point lead over Barack Obama in the latest New York Times/CBS poll, but I'm calm. I've always said it's going to be a tight race, and I'd prefer to let the right take the current polls too seriously. (Late last week, Rasmussen had a poll showing Romney with an eight-point lead, which led Power Line to ask, "Is Romney Pulling Away?," and led Breitbart to taunt Democrats with "Time to Panic?" Then -- whoops! -- one Rasmussen tracking poll later, Romney's lead was cut in half. So don't count your chickens, righties.)

This race really, really reminds me of 2004. You know who led in most of the polls inmost of May 2004? Kerry, by as much as 8 points. Kerry did well in June, and led in most polls in July and August.

Notice when he led? He led when he wasn't actively campaigning. In the downtime between the primaries and the general election, he was doing well in the polls; by the time the race got under way in earnest, however, Bush began to lead in most polls. And that's how it wound up.

I think Romney is doing better because, if you're not a politics junkie, you're not seeing him on the news. The less people see of him, the more they like him -- and I'd say, vice versa. (A lot of people felt that way about Kerry, too.) So I still think he's going to lose. In the fall, he actually has to start campaigning again. Then people will be reminded that they don't like him, a fact of which they were all too aware during the primaries.

I wish he'd lose because the public rejected Republican ideology. But as a nation we're not ready for that, alas. Maybe someday.