Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards may have to pay $170,000 in FEC fines for accepting excessive contributions during his 2004 presidential campaign.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal was in Raleigh Wednesday to speak to the state’s conservative base.

Jindal held a dinner talk entitled, “America: An Agenda for the Future.”      

He also attended two fundraisers for his gubernatorial re-election campaign: at the Charlotte headquarters for Baton Rouge-based Shaw Group Inc. and at the Umstead Hotel in Cary.

Jindal was frequently mentioned as a possible running mate for Republican presidential candidate John McCain during the 2008 election season, and conservatives have touted him as a possible 2012 candidate for the White House. The 37-year-old Jindal has denied interest in a presidential campaign.

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama is galloping away with the presidential race. Or maybe he has a modest lead. Or maybe he and John McCain are neck and neck.

Confusing? Sure, thanks to the dueling results of recent major polls.

In the past week, most surveys have shown Democrat Obama with a significant national lead over Republican McCain. Focusing on “likely voters” – as many polling organizations prefer this close to Election Day – an ABC News-Washington Post survey showed Obama leading by 11 percentage points. A Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll had the same margin, while the nonpartisan Pew Research Center gave Obama a 14-point edge.

But others had the race much closer. CNN-Opinion Research detected an Obama lead of 5 points. The George Washington University Battleground Poll had Obama up by 4 points. And an Associated Press-GfK poll showed Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent – in effect, a tie.

How can this be? Some questions and answers about why the polls differ.

Q: Don’t pollsters simply ask questions, tally the answers and report them?
 A: No. After finishing their interviews – usually with about 1,000 people, sometimes more – they adjust the answers to make sure they reflect Census Bureau data on the population like gender, age, education and race. For example, if the proportion of women interviewed is smaller than their actual share of the country’s population, their answers are given more “weight” to balance that out. But some pollsters make these adjustments differently than others. And while most polling organizations including the AP do not modify the responses to reflect some recent tally of how many Democrats, Republicans and independents there are, some do.

Q: Are those the only changes made?
A: No. As Election Day nears, polling organizations like to narrow their samples to people who say they are registered voters. They often narrow them further to those they consider likely voters. That’s because in a country where barely more than half of eligible voters usually show up for presidential elections, pollsters want their polls to reflect the views of those likeliest to vote.

Q: Is that hard to do?
A: Quite hard, since no one will truly know who will vote on Election Day until that day is over. In fact, virtually every polling organization has its own way of determining who likely voters are.

Like many polling organizations, the AP asks several questions about how often people have voted in the past and how likely they are to vote this year, and those who score highest are considered likely voters.

Q: Why is this such a problem?
A: Because nobody is 100 percent sure how to do this properly. And the challenge is being compounded this year because many think Obama’s candidacy could spark higher turnout than usual from certain voters, including young voters and minorities. The question pollsters face is whether, and how, to adjust their tests for likely voters to reflect this.

In identifying likely voters, the AP does not build in an assumption of higher turnout by blacks or young voters. Pew Director Andrew Kohut says that reflecting exceptionally heavy African-American turnout in the Democratic primaries, Pew’s model of likely voters now shows blacks as 12 percent of voters, compared to 9 percent in 2004.
 
Underscoring the uncertainty, the Gallup Poll is using two versions of likely voters this year – a traditional one that asks about peoples’ past voting behavior and their current voting intentions; and an expanded one that only looks at how intent they are on voting this year, which would tend to include more new
voters.

Q: What else might cause differences?
A: The groups pollsters randomly choose to interview are bound to differ from each other, and sometimes do significantly.
 
Every poll has a margin of sampling error, usually around 3 percentage points for 1,000 people. That means the results of a poll of 1,000 people should fall within 3 points of the results you would expect had the pollster instead interviewed the entire population of the U.S. But – and this is important – the results
are expected to be that accurate only 95 percent of the time. That means that one time in 20, pollsters expect to interview a group whose views are not that close to the overall population’s views.

Q: Are the differences among polls this year that unusual?
A: Not wildly, but that doesn’t make them less noticeable. There’s a big difference between a race that’s tied in the AP poll, and Pew’s 14-point Obama lead. But because of each poll’s margin of error, those differences may be a bit less – or more – than meet the eye.
 
That’s because each poll’s margin of sampling error should really be applied to the support for each candidate, not the gap between them.

Take the AP poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Obama’s 44 percent support is likely between 48 percent and 40 percent. McCain’s 43 percent is probably between 47 percent and 39 percent.

When support for candidates is measured in ranges like that, some polls’ findings could overlap – or grow worse.

Q: Are people always willing to tell pollsters who they’re supporting for president?
A: No, and that’s another possible source of discrepancies. Some polling organizations gently prod people who initially say they’re undecided for a presidential preference, others do it more vigorously. The AP’s poll, for example, found 9 percent of likely voters were undecided, while the ABC-Post survey had 2 percent.

CONCORD, N.C. – Wife of presidential hopeful John McCain, Cindy McCain, campaigned for her husband at the Lowe’s Motor Speedway Saturday evening.

FULL INTERVIEW:

McCain said she is a racing fan and once built and raced a “drift car” with her son. She acknowledged North Carolina has become a battleground state.

“We’re putting a focus on all the states, but North Carolina will be key in this race too. Whoever carries North Carolina is going to win this race, and we understand the importance of it. People, my husband appeals to the people of North Carolina and so it’s our job to get the message out of reform, peace and prosperity — let people understand what my husband’s ideas are for a smaller government, lower taxes to get this economy under control, and not tax people not expand government, which is what Obama wants to do. There’s a huge difference between the candidates and we’re going to get our message out. There are 24 days left so we’re going to be getting our message out in a major way,” McCain said.

McCain said she believes the economy is the number one election issue, followed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She also described the type of role she would take on as First Lady, if her husband is elected.

Senator John McCain picked up two big endorsements from Richard Childress and Richard Petty during Saturday’s event at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

Musician “Cowboy Troy,” a McCain supporter, performed for the crowd. John McCain’s son, Doug McCain, was there to show support for his father and addressed North Carolina being a battleground state.

“We’re in an unexpected economy but when all is said and done I think that we will be over the hump and North Carolina will be firmly in the red column,” Doug McCain said.

WASHINGTON – Private markets fail, politicians from both parties jump to their rescue, and taxpayers get stuck with the bill. Libertarian candidate Bob Barr couldn’t have scripted a better story line to argue that Republicans and Democrats are interchangeable – with a helpless addiction to spending.

Can Barr capitalize on it during the closing weeks of the presidential campaign?

Polls so far aren’t registering a shift to the Libertarian candidate in spite of widespread outrage over the $700 billion rescue package. The former GOP congressman from Georgia is languishing with about the same 1 percent share of support he’s had for months.

But Barr is sharpening his attacks on Republican nominee John McCain, hoping that fiscal conservatives frustrated over McCain’s support for the bailout will join his anti-government campaign. Barr says traffic on his Web site is spiking, donations are picking up and the campaign is getting angry calls from Republicans who feel betrayed.

“McCain just seems to make it worse and worse,” Barr said in an interview this week. “In the debate he gave this muddled answer about increasing government purchases of troubled mortgages. This is a self-described conservative Republican urging the Department of the Treasury to buy people’s mortgages.”

“This illustrates just how far the Republican Party in particular has slid,” Barr said. “One would expect it from the Democrats, but for Republicans to be championing this massive government intervention down to the level of purchasing individual mortgages is unbelievable.”

Brian Rogers, a McCain spokesman, said the campaign is not concerned because McCain has a consistent record of fighting wasteful spending and supporting what is in the national interest, not “what’s politically expedient.”

“We feel very strong about the McCain-Palin ticket’s support among fiscal conservatives and Republicans at large,” Rogers said. “There’s a big choice in November and they recognize that he’s the
better choice.”
  
Barr doesn’t mind criticizing McCain in personal terms. Earlier this month, he issued a statement saying, “Sen. McCain claims he can act in a bipartisan manner, but his actions on the Wall Street bailout bill shows he acts in a bipolar manner.”

Since he won the Libertarian nomination in May, Republicans have been worried about Barr’s impact on the race because his fiscal positions align more closely with McCain’s.

Yet Barr, who built a national following in the 1990s for relentlessly pursuing President Clinton’s impeachment, has been overshadowed by unusually competitive party primaries and a historic general election featuring the first black nominee from a major party and the first Republican woman nominated for vice president.

A national Associated Press-GfK poll taken Sept. 27-30 found Barr with just 1 percent support. In recent polls in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, he has less than that.

But even tiny percentages for third-party candidates could have an impact. In Florida, a CNN poll released Oct. 1 showed Obama at 51 percent to McCain’s 47 percent in a head-to-head matchup. McCain’s support fell to 43 percent when Barr was listed along with independent candidate Ralph Nader and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney.
 
Not even Nader can make sense of why he would appeal to potential McCain voters rather than Obama supporters.

“I have no idea,” said Nader. “You have to ask the pollsters. It really is counterintuitive.”

Unlike in 2004, when lawsuits in 18 states challenged Nader’s right to be on the ballot, Democrats have yet to file a challenge this year. They recognize it’s in their interest to include third-party candidates, said Jason Kafoury, national coordinator for the Nader campaign.

Nader – also an opponent of the financial bailout – is on 45 ballots, one more than he was in 2000 when he won more than 2.7 percent of the vote. He was on just 34 ballots four years ago when his vote total fell to 0.38 percent.

In Barr’s case, the bailout could marginally boost his campaign, said Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist who studies presidential politics at Emory University. But he said Barr needs to get his message out more effectively to make any gains.

“It’s the kind of issue that should work for him. I’m sure that some die-hard conservatives are very unhappy with McCain over his support for the bailout,” Abramowitz said. “But as far as it having much impact, I don’t think Barr is visible enough at this point.”

David Winston, a Washington-based Republican pollster, agreed and said many voters who initially opposed the bailout have come around to it after seeing the stock market drop and the financial crisis spread globally.

“My sense is it’ll get Bob Barr some publicity, but ultimately voters who had difficulty with the idea, as much as they don’t like what happened, they also recognize at a practical level that some action had to occur,” Winston said.