The summer of an election year tends to be a fickle, schizophrenic period. Candidates, elected officials, staffers, operatives, journalists and activists have a tendency to overreact to even the smallest events and to polls in particular. Like an out of control roller coaster, those intimately involved with the campaigns are overly optimistic one minute, plunge into unwarranted pessimism another, and, then just as quickly climb up to giddiness again. Add to these fickle times the human tendency to confuse analysis with wishful thinking and you have one, long hot summer. The recent back and forth in the race for the White House is a good example of how the summer months play out.

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