A Happy Saturday Update On Everything From Polls To Joe The Plumber

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Barack Obama attracting 52% of the vote while John McCain has dipped to 44%. This eight point advantage matches Obama's biggest lead of the year in a race that has been remarkably stable down the stretch.

Meanwhile, at Nate Silver’s totally wonkish fivethirtyeight.com, where a large group of polls are run through massively complex mathematical formulas, regressions, equations and weighting every day before ginning out numbers that mean something, today’s projection sits at:

Electoral Votes
Obama............348.4
McCain...........189.6

Popular Vote
Obama............52.0%
McCain...........46.5%

Senate Seats
Democrats........56.6
Republicans......41.4
Independent...... 2.0

Finally, a bit of levity.

James Carville has a theory on why the McCain campaign found Joe the Plumber. It was because "the Republicans wanted to find someone hanging around a toilet other than Larry Craig," he explains to Politico.com. Meanwhile, when asked if Gov. Sarah Palin is ready to be president, Sen. Joe Lieberman tells the Stamford (CT)Advocate "Thank God she's not going to have to be president from day one."

Or ever.