Quin, I join Phil in the camp of dire pessimism. The “massive shift” took place between Sept. 16 and Oct. 2, the date Team Maverick effectively conceded defeat by pulling out of Michigan. McCain’s endorsement of the bailout was the decisive event of the campaign. After the first debate (Sept. 26), the swing voters swung solidly to Obama, and any apparent motion in the polls since then has been a statistical mirage. The eight-point advantage Obama held in the Sept. 29 Gallup tracking poll is likely to be his final margin of victory — call it 53%-45%.

Obama’s popular vote margin will not be less than 5 points (52%-47%) although I doubt it will be as large as 54-44. Still, Obama will win a crushing Electoral College majority — including Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Colorado and (obviously) Pennsylvania — and easily exceed Bush’s record 2004 total of 62 million votes, becoming the first Democrat to get a popular-vote majority since Jimmy Carter in 1976. (And we all know what a triumph the Carter administration proved to be.)