Chicago Sun-Times: Tight Poll Numbers 'Work For Obama'

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Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin today explains "Why polls aren't worrying Obama's team."  As it turns out, there are several reasons:

Obama can certainly lose this race. But McCain's going to have to find a better way to win it than by invoking Paris Hilton or by sniping in his most recent ad how "life in the spotlight must be grand but for the rest of us, times are tough."

What's tough for McCain is that despite having had a practice run at the presidency once before, it didn't limber him up, cause him to realize that even the elderly now skillfully navigate the Internet or help him craft a "vision thing."

In the short run, jealous jabs at Obama for having too much face time on the covers of Rolling Stone and GQ may appear to close the gap in national polls. But the aggregation of images -- Obama in Germany, Obama with his cute girls and beautiful wife, Obama visiting his grandmother in Hawaii -- is by dribs and drabs helping America feel familiar with him, visualize him on foreign soil, and see him, perhaps, as both human and presidential.

In some ways the tightening numbers work for Obama, not against him.

"No cause for panic," said Kupper (one of Obama's political flacks). No, indeed, he's off to splash in the Pacific surf with his family.

Hallelujah!  It's gonna be OK.  Sure, Obama is running against a party that has terribly low approval ratings.  Obama has enormous financial backing.  Obama receives unprecedentedly favorable coverage from a mainstream media eager to serve as his lapdogs most of the time.

And yet, and yet. . .  the race is extraordinarily close at the same time he should enjoy a huge lead.  So it's great that media types can assert McCain isn't limber.  He's not an Internet wiz and doesn't have a "vision thing."  But Obama's pregame victory lap in Germany, his cute girls and beautiful wife, his visiting his typical white person grandmother and other things will ultimately turn things around.

In the media, hope springs eternal.