The media purpose is to 1) discourage Romney voters with poor poll numbers, and 2) encourage Obama voters with good poll numbers. Conservative jounalists need to STOP wasting valuable ink talking about poll numbers and START talking about the issues. And conservatives in general need to ignore the polls.
BTW-If Carter was 4 points over Reagan at this time, one has to wonder where Romney is with being tied in the polls.
Of course I agree you can’t compare Romney with Reagen and there have been demographic shifts as others have pointed out. However, I think the main thing to take away from looking back at the Carter vs Reagan polls is that the polls can never be trusted. I believe most polls are understating support for Romney by 3-5%.