I say this with the proviso that it's clear that the polls are settling back to roughly a tie. And there's no need for anyone to panic. But lots of people write in to say that the national polls don't mean anything, that it's the electoral college that decides the election and that Obama remains firmly in command on that count.

Don't be fooled. Every electoral college count you see is by definition a lagging indicator simply because individual state polls don't come in anywhere near as frequently as national polls. So when you point to an electoral counter, you're referring to a composite picture that is a few weeks old. If the race remains a statistical tie as it is as of today, with a hair's breadth of a McCain lead, the electoral map will soon rebalance to a rough tie as well.