Tighten up your poll

First of all, God bless America. And second of all, God bless LenDale White. Much as he does with copious portions of food, I have an unhealthy obsession with him.

Moving on, we’ve seen a couple of polls come out today showing a couple of things: tight races in Florida, Virginia and West Virginia, but Obama widening his lead in national FOX News and Ipsos/McClatchy polls. In an AP/Gfk national poll, Obama is winning by a percentage point. Personally, I pay attention to the state by state polls because the popular vote does not mean 270 electoral votes and the White House, a point made in “First Read” this morning and manifested in Al Gore making movies about nature.

The polls remind me of my time at the gym. Recently, and I can now admit this freely, I’ve enjoyed the elliptical machines. I get to move my arms in a purposeful manner and feel like I exercised more than after running for the same amount of time. Also, I’m 6′4″. I don’t look good on these things, but I hold too a high level of disdain for treadmills because I’m no Ivan Drago. I can’t run outside because the roads near my house in Knoxville are paved over farm roads with no shoulders. I’d be safer running along the retaining wall of a shark tank. I also think it’s ridiculous to drive somewhere to run. Why don’t you run to where you’d park and back?

At the gym there are two kinds of elliptical machines, and I use both regularly because why be a one-trick Pony? After a 30-minute workout on one type of machine it tells me I’ve burned 400-plus calories and one the other type after 30 minutes I’ve burned 800 or so.

Mrs. Pony says I should stick with the lower count. In order to justify my consumption habits I like to think of the higher amount. The truth is likely somewhere in between or perhaps not even between 400-800 calories. But I’m exercising the same amount, the same duration, the same relative resistance. A poll suggests that the sample taken is a microcosm — the idea is you take that percentage and expand it to the entire state or nation.

But with such variances between polls who and how are we to trust them? Campaigns obviously tout the ones benefiting them. But as Americans who like displaying images in corn fields and have man-crushes on overweight running backs polls are murky. If it were me I’d take the polls that look worst for your candidate and campaign that way. In that case, the McCain camp is looking up at Obama nationally, and the Obama camp is looking at a statistical dead heat with McCain.

As for the elliptical machines, all I want to know is whether or not I can have an oatmeal creme pie at the end of the day. McCain should probably lay off them for now while Obama can buy a box but not open it yet.