MICHAEL BARONE’S LATEST COLUMN is on the polls, and he looks at the Steven Den Beste analysis I mentioned earlier. His conclusion differs from Den Beste’s:

My tentative explanation is this. Bush’s most effective opposition this year has come not from Kerry and the Democrats but from Old Media, the New York Times and the news pages of the Washington Post, along with the broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC. Old Media gave very heavy coverage to stories that tended to hurt Bush—violence in Iraq, Abu Ghraib, the false charges of Richard Clarke and Joseph Wilson, etc. And during the first eight months of the year Bush did a poor job of making his case.

Then, suddenly, that case was made with maximum effectiveness at the Republican National Convention in New York—by John McCain and Rudolph Giuliani, by Zell Miller and Arnold Schwarzenegger, by Laura Bush and Dick Cheney and George W. Bush himself. Bush was able to get his message out unmediated by Old Media.

Interesting theory. And — as always when Barone writes about polling and elections — you should read the whole thing. Meanwhile, Robert Musil has thoughts of his own on polls.