An outlier or a trend? The new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll has Bush 47% to Kerry at 45%. And, that aside, can we survive eight months of this?

Editorial Note: This last quip seems to have been widely misconstrued. So I must not have been clear. My point isn't a reflection on the state of the polls, good or bad, but the intensity of the campaigning, eight months out.

One other point: The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is a survey of "adults" rather than "registered voters" or "likely voters". So this may account for some of the variance from other recent samplings. We'll have to wait to see from the next round of numbers.