Obama's numbers have been sliding in several midwestern states since the beginning of September.  Like most people I blamed this on the RNC bounce and assured myself that everything would be okay in a week or two.

Well, it's now been a week or two, and Obama is doing fine in the national tracking polls.   But Ohio hasn't moved back into the blue column.  At one point mid-summer Obama was consistently polling 5 points ahead of McCain in that state.  The Intrade.com markets had given Obama over a 60 percent chance of winning the state.  Obama's numbers tanked in this state during the RNC, and even now they haven't fully recovered.  The RCP average of polls has McCain winning the state by 1.6 points, and Intrade lists the state as almost a perfect coin flip. 

Of course, the great thing about the electoral map this year is that there are so many paths open to victory for Obama.  Ohio is only one of those. We all know that Obama needs either OH, or FL, or NM and CO on top of the Kerry states + IA to win.  But now several Kerry  states have tightened up significantly. 

Pennsylvania, once an 8 point lead for Obama in the polls has been drawn into a 2 point race.  A similar story can be seen in MN, MI, and WI as well.  It seems every time I visit pollster.com another state has been moved from blue into the toss-up category. 

I don't want to be a worrier.  Let's see how the polls shake out later this week after the financial crisis has had a while to sink in.