What the hell is going on?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Over at TNR, which I read daily, there's a debate/discussion going on between John Judis and Noam Scheiber (with Jonathan Cohn also weighing in) about cork-popping.

As in, is it time to start popping the corks? Is the race over? Judis says yes, more or less, but Scheiber is deeply worried.

There seems to be little doubt that the race has tightened. But by how much?

As Chuck Todd puts it at MSNBC, "it's hard to imagine this race not tightening," as if it hasn't already, mainly because of the undecideds, most of whom are "folks who, four years ago, voted mostly Republican," but who "are not yet on board when it comes to voting for Obama."

As Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight noted, though -- and he does this on a daily basis -- "Obama once again had an exceptionally good day in the state-level numbers" yesterday. Even the national polls were pretty much even, some moving to McCain, some moving to Obama, some remaining flat. Nate also suggests that the undecideds could "split essentially evenly," given that they're not all white Republicans.

Elsewhere, CNN says that Obama has made fairly significant gains at the state level, most notably in Colorado (where he is well ahead) and Indiana (which is now a toss-up). As well, he is "holding on to a strong lead in Virginia," Missouri is "basically a dead heat," and he's down by just 5 in Georgia. (More here.)

Anyway, I'll be back later, after Obama's 30-minute "ad," which is about to start -- and perhaps even later, after his appearance on The Daily Show tonight.

Stay tuned. There's a lot more to come here at The Reaction.