This bit of information comes from over at CrushKerry.com and purportedly are the words of a longtime Republican insider who worked in the Reagan campaigns:
"In the next couple of days you will see a trend that shows Kerry taking a small but consistent lead against President Bush. I'm talking one or two points. And then, almost without warning or explanation, you will see the President open up a four- to six-point lead on or around Thursday. And that trend will carry the President through Election Day."
What is interesting to me is that this was in a post from this past Friday. So far he is hitting it pretty close. Kerry in fact did inch ahead in several polls released Sunday and Monday. Now we are starting to see Bush re-gain some traction.
Take Rasmussen for example. Many people swear by him and just as many swear at him, but as far as I know he uses consistent methods from poll to poll and thus while he may or may not be accurate, you can at least compare his polls to each other and get a sense for how things MAY be moving.
Let's look at his numbers for each day, starting on Friday (the day of the prediction by the GOP insider) and through today October 27.
Date Bush Kerry Movement Cumulative
Oct 22 49.1 45.9 Baseline
Oct 23 48.0 46.7 Bush -1.9
Oct 24 47.6 47.2 Bush -0.9 -2.8
Oct 25 46.4 48.4 Bush -2.4 -5.2
Oct 26 47.8 47.8 Bush +2.0 -3.2
Oct 27 48.8 47.1 Bush +1.7 -1.5
So what you see is a very clear movement toward Kerry and then just as clear a movement back toward Bush, just as predicted by Mr. Insider. Bush relative to Kerry is still 1.5% behind where he started on Friday, so the next two days of polling will be highly interesting to see.
One cautionary note, I have been told that Rasmussen had one day of polling that was clearly an anti-Bush outlier, however over that period from Friday to Monday, there was steady movement that went well beyond a single "bad poll day".
Very striking is the fact that the Rasmussen poll shows a huge 3.7% swing in just two days, from Kerry +2 to Bush +1.7.
When Rasmussen adds in the "leaners" the numbers go to Bush 49.5 and Kerry 48.1 meaning that Kerry is getting roughly 63% of undecideds who admit which way they are leaning.
Another 1.9% say they are still completely undecided and according to Rasmussen probably 50% of those will not even bother to vote. All of which, if correct, makes for a VERY steep hill for Kerry to climb.
All of that for what it is worth.