. . .is the subject of what may be the most biased write-up of poll data from 2008. Some excerpts from the Associated Press report:

WASHINGTON (AP) — When it comes to the public’s image of John McCain, it’s as if somebody dialed the electricity down in the past month. For Barack Obama, the juice is still flowing.
People’s regard for the Republican presidential nominee has deteriorated across-the-board since September, an Associated Press-Yahoo! News poll showed Friday, with McCain losing ground in how favorably he’s seen and in a long list of personal qualities voters seek in White House contenders.

McCain tanking!

Obama’s image has been sturdy even as voters’ views of the overall campaign have tumbled downhill since September. The portion of people saying the contest excites them has sunk to 32 percent while those calling it frustrating have grown to 41 percent — and in both cases, six in 10 of those whose feelings have worsened are McCain backers.
Negative campaigning and a month of intense public focus on collapsing global economic and financial markets have not been kind to McCain. The new AP-Yahoo! News poll of likely voters, conducted this month by Knowledge Networks, shows more people viewing him favorably than unfavorably by just 5 percentage points, down from a 21-point difference in mid-September.

It’s over for McCain!

“He kind of scared me,” Leesa Zick, 48, an undecided Republican from Edwardsville, Ill., said of McCain’s abrupt and short-lived suspension of his campaign last month during Capitol Hill talks on a financial package. “We need a president who can deal with multiple tasks. It seemed like it overwhelmed him.”

And he’s too old!

Now, focus on this excerpt:

Less than three weeks from Election Day, Obama has taken a solid lead over McCain in most national and swing-state polls. The AP-Yahoo! News survey underscores the morale problem McCain faces.
Obama supporters are more than twice as likely to say they’re excited about the race and significantly more likely to say they’re interested and hopeful. McCain backers, meanwhile, more often say they feel frustrated and helpless. Underscoring a period that has seen the rival candidates trade personal attacks, about a fifth of those backing each say they’re angry.

Nowhere in the write-up does the AP tell its readers where McCain and Obama actually are in their poll. It’s Obama over McCain 44 percent to 42 percent. (PDF link to the entire poll here. Explanation of the “waves” here. “Wave 8″ is the poll conducted October 3-13.)

Now read the line in bold above again. Unbelievable.