More from the Don't Panic file...

Ruy Teixeira cuts through the headlines for a look at the deeper story on some recent polling.

"...Kerry's favorabilty rating remained unchanged in the battleground states and that persuadable voters were uninclined to drink the Republican Kool-Aid about Kerry flip-flopping, believing Bush, more than Kerry, exhibited that behavior. And now check out these just-released findings from the same ABC News poll that contributed to Democrats' anguish about Bush being ahead. According to data in The Hotline (I can't find any link yet on a public website, but I'm sure one will eventually appear), Kerry is ahead of Bush by 4 points in the battleground states (50-46). He's even ahead of Bush by 2 points in these states with Nader thrown into the mix and drawing a ridiculous 7 percent."

"Note also that Bush's approval rating in the battleground states is 49 percent, 2 points under his national rating and that his approval rating on the economy in these states is just 41 percent, 3 points under his national rating."

While it's easy to fret about national polling, those numbers are nearly meaningless in electoral terms. While our votes affect national decisions, there's really no national election. It's a state by state battle for an Electoral College margin, and the battlegrounds need to be weighted differently than the stronghold states. National polls don't do that, so other than making us feel all warm and fuzzy when we're ahead, or cold and shivery when we're not, they don't much matter.

Elsewhere, Ryan Lizza's New York Times op-ed points out that Bush is holding little of the advantage that usually acrues to incumbents, with even the polls he leads showing him below the 50% mark. "Thus," Lizza concludes, "support for Mr. Bush should be seen more as a ceiling, while support for Mr. Kerry, the lesser-known challenger, is more like a floor."

We need to work hard to build a victory on the foundation that floor provides, and fight back against the political vandals who try to tear down our political edifice, but none of that is made any easier or more effective by panic.

Yep, Work Hard, Fight Back, Don't Panic.

Words to live, and campaign, by.