by Sean Bowditch

Here are two tidbits I thought I would toss out there...

Politico's Jonathan Martin blogs that the RNC's independent arm is pulling its ads in Maine and a few in Wisconsin and reassigning the resources to Colorado and Missouri. In fact, Martin points out that this marks the first time McCain will have a presence on the airwaves in Missouri. This is simply more evidence that McCain is fighting for his political life: he's been forced into a defensive posture in several traditionally red states, while pulling up stakes in blue states he was hoping to wrestle away from Obama.

Meanwhile, over at 538.com, Nate Silver is poring over a slew of new data. Survey2000 just finished up a series of surveys in five battleground states where some form of early voting took place (NM, OH, GA, IA, and NC). Bottomline: Obama is leading by an average of 23 points. That's a big number. However, Silver rightly warns against taking these numbers too seriously. They're estimates after all. But, if only remotely accurate, this bucks a long-standing trend; historically, early voting favors Republicans. In early polling in 2000 and 2004, Bush led 62.2 percent and 60.4 percent, respectively. Silver also notes that early voters tend to be older and predominantly male, two factors that would seem to leave Obama at a disadvantage.