[comebacknewt]

perhaps this is advantage Obama, as one theory has it that pollsters, who only use land lines to place their polling calls, are missing a lot of Obama's younger, cell-phone-only supporters.

I'm pretty sure most pollsters use random number generators that would indeed pick up cell phone users. Plus, the same methods that caused Obambi's numbers to be overstated in the primaries are the same methods used today.

Then, add the fact that the Republican candidate almost always underpolls actual performance, and I can see no valid reason to think Obama is in better shape than the polls suggest.

[goldfinch]

Obama, as one theory has it that pollsters, who only use land lines to place their polling calls, are missing a lot of Obama's younger, cell-phone-only supporters.

Gallup states that they call cell phones as well as land lines for their daily tracking poll. I do not know what the others do, or even what Gallup does on their regular polls...but I would guess that everyone who conducts polls is aware of the problem and has tried to find a solution.

That said, I actually agree with Dan Rather's premise (how scary is that?)...summer polls are of little value in projecting the winner. At best, they show trends.