Polls...

So, I'm full of chicken wings, beer and Amphora chocolate mousse and feeling rather lazy, but I'll try to make a coherent post.

As Sam alluded to in his post, the polls have been back and forth in the last few days, but for the most part they have been within the margin of error. To the intelligent voter, this means that the polls really don't tell us anything other than the election is very tight. Given the closeness of this race, what I want to know is if it's more advantageous for a candidate to be ahead or behind on the eve (literally, definition #1) of the election. Here are some theories:

1) Being behind is better, because it will motivate voters who support a candidate, but are lazy, to hit the polls. (Similarly, lazy voters for the leading candidate might decide that they aren't needed)
2) Being ahead is better, because it will 'energize' a candidate's supporters and encourage them to hit the polls.
3) Being ahead is better, because people always like being on the winning team, so some undecided voters will vote for the leading candidate simply so they can be on the victorious side.

I'd like to think that #3 is unlikely, but given some of the reasons that people I know support Bush, I would not be surprised if it is a factor. Anyway, it's just something to mull over while you're driving to work over the next week.