Zogby Shocker

The race for president tightens, as the Zogby poll shows McCain cutting two points off Barack's lead. That's good news - but that's not the surprise.

Republican John McCain made a small gain against Democrat Barack Obama and has pulled back within the margin of error, now trailing Obama by five points, 49.1% to 44.1%, the latest Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby daily tracking telephone poll shows.

This follows a couple of days in which the tracking polls had seemed to indicate an end to a McCain move to close the gap. But the news gets better.

Almost two days worth of the polling -- or about half of the current sample in the three-day rolling poll of likely voters nationwide, was conducted after Obama's 30-minute commercial aired Wednesday evening. There is no evidence it helped him, as he has dropped 1.1 points in the last two days, while McCain has gained 0.8 points during the same period.

And, here's the big news from John Zogby.

"Is McCain making a move? The three-day average holds steady, but McCain outpolled Obama today, 48% to 47%. He is beginning to cut into Obama's lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters. Joe the Plumber may get his license after all."

That's right - in Friday's numbers, McCain leads Obama by 1%.

Of course, the Friday results may be an anomaly - they do three day tracking polls to buffer against misperceptions that might develop from looking at one day's results. We'll watch eagerly for confirmation from the Rasmussen and Gallup polls, which release later.

Rasmussen showed a 4% Obama lead yesterday, but Gallup had moved to 8%, so the Zogby numbers must be viewed with some caution.