So how far is Gov. Mitch Daniels ahead of challenger Jill Long Thompson?  One percent?  Twenty-two percent?  Something in between?  Those are the numbers from the crazily skewing polls we’ve been seeing in the last couple of weeks.  Most have Daniels comfortably ahead, with some in the near-landslide zone.  But a couple of polls showing his lead in the low single digits keep us from declaring this race over.

  Here’s something to remember.  Long Thompson hasn’t been running any TV ads for about a month.  That’s about the same time she closed a bunch of her campaign offices.  With now less than a month to go before the election, you’d have to think that if her campaign isn’t completely poverty stricken, she’d be back on TV.  That would indicate that the internal polls, the ones we don’t see but the big contributors do, are bad for Long Thompson.  Otherwise, they’d be opening their wallets to fund the October commercials that might be her only chance.

  Debate number three next Tuesday might provide another chance for a comeback.  But based on the first two debates, Long Thompson hasn’t really done anything to move the numbers.

  What scares Daniels’ people, I’m sure, is the prospect of a Barack Obama landslide in Indiana.  Yes, I know that even a narrow Democratic presidential victory in Indiana qualifies as historical.  But what if things continue deteriorating for John McCain and Obama opens up a really substantial lead in Indiana?  What if all those newly registered voters who haven’t been to the polls before don’t bother to take the extra effort to split their tickets?  What if they just check “Democratic” and walk out the door?  That has to keep Daniels up at night just a little bit at least.