From the "Don't Panic" department...

...Josh Marshall offers some comforting wisdom about recent polls, noting that many of his Kerry supporting friends and readers are getting doomy and gloomy with ever swing of the figures.

"The first thing that is worth noting," he notes "is that if you look at the tally on the Polling Report website, there have been eight other polls conducted entirely or in part during the month of April. And only one of those showed a lead for the president..."

Of course, it's arguable that virtually no poll has really shown a measurable lead for anyone at this point. The margins tend to be five or six points maximum in polls that carry margins of error at +/- 3 or 4 minimum. Of course, to hold a truly measurable lead, the margin has to be at least twice the MOE (plus and minus count for and against each candidate), and just about everything and anything I've seen, except a handful of state polls, has been within the MOE, properly applied.

In any event, Marshall is absolutely right when he writes " ...over the first four months of this year, they've (the polls) oscillated back and forth a couple times. I think this is the just the nature of this race. And something folks on both sides are going to have to get used to."

Yep. Don't get complacent. We need to work hard. We need to fight back.

But right now? There's no reason to panic.