This election is about the issues, contrary to what John McCain’s Fannie Mae adviser said. McCain has no new ideas on the economy, he wants to cut your taxes less than Barack Obama (unless you make like $4 Million per year), McCain has shown that he wants to go to war as often as possible, and he’s got no new plans for health care, education, Social Security, he’s chickened out on immigration reform, he has lied about cutting earmarks… the list goes on and on.

Still, there’s worries that Obama can’t win the election. Well, who knows. But with the first ballots already being cast right now, and only 40 days until Election Day, let’s take a look at the (often wrong) polls.

From electoral-vote.com, here’s how the map looks as of today.

OK. Now, let’s compare this map to the state of things on this date in 2004.

Here’s the thing. The polls don’t tell the whole story, of course. There’s a lot to consider when predicting an election, including the effect of new voter registrations, the strength of each candidate’s organization and get out the vote capabilities, the history of voting trends in the state, and there could be a pivotal event between now and November 4 that renders today’s polls utterly meaningless.

Still, the media narrative has been that Obama is way behind where he should be, considering how inept McCain’s campaign has been, and how terrible the economy is doing, and how unpopular the incumbent party is, and so on. Maybe Obama “should” be doing better, but it’s very safe to say that Obama is doing much better than Kerry was at this time last election.

On September 26, 2004, the polls had Kerry behind in Oregon, Maine, and Minnesota (he ended up winning all three). Today, the polls put Obama in the lead in all three of these states. In fact, Obama will win all the Kerry states if today’s polls are correct.

If today’s polls turn out to be correct, Obama will pick up four states that Kerry lost in 2004: Virginia (!) Colorado, Iowa, and New Mexico. Virginia is a huge pickup if the polls are right: VA voted for Bush, Dole, Bush, and Bush in the last 4 elections — even the Clinton landslide in 1996 didn’t flip it. Holding the Kerry states, picking up VA, and adding those other 3 Bush states gives Obama more than enough electoral votes: 286 (270 are needed to win).

The most objective reading of the polls, for what they’re worth, is that McCain is on the defensive. What used to be solidly Republican territory, for example North Carolina (where Bush thwacked Kerry by 12 percentage points) is a statistical tie. Other Bush states are also teetering — Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Florida…. Basically, McCain needs everything to go right for him in about 7 states, while Obama needs only about 4 states to tip his way.

The election is by no means a sure thing for either candidate, and the Obama get out the vote drive needs to be even better than advertised to keep the Kerry states and then to turn those Bush strongholds. (Get involved in get out the vote NOW.) There are a number of ways to read the poll tea leaves. The news media will always read the tea leaves in a way that makes for the most dramatic storyline, because that’s what keeps people watching. The “Obama should be in better shape” narrative will probably run its course, and if trends continue, we’ll start hearing “McCain is letting it slip away” next, and then “McCain is making a comeback!” and then “Now Obama’s surging!” and so on — whatever keeps the story interesting, that’s how the media pundits will read the polls.

No matter what the pundits predict, we’ll need a lot of volunteers to keep Obama and his much better policy ideas in the plus column once the only polls that matter — the elections on November 4 — get underway.