Remember Plouffe said Obama's internals looked great even when his lead was 1-2 points

[Alhena]

Anyone remember how back in late summer, when Obama's lead in the national polls was 1-2 points, Obama strategist David Plouffe gave a conference call when he said that they weren't worried about national polls. Plouffe said all they cared about were a dozen or so battleground states and that, based on their internal polling, he would much rather be Obama than McCain. He sounded very sincere and confident to me- it's not like the Obama campaign to lie. So if the Obama camp was confident in their internal polls when his lead was 1-2 in Gallup and other national polls, it's a safe bet they look extremely good now.

Another sign that McCain's internal polls are worse than the public ones is the fact that he pulled out of Michigan and reduced his ad buy in Colorado even when the public state polls didn't show his position to be so dire as to warrant that. With Colorado, McCain's staffers were leaking that it looked grim for them even when the public polls there showed Obama with only a 5 point lead.

So it seems to me that both Obama's and McCain's internal polls often are worse for McCain than the publicly released ones.