The Live Poll: Obama-Romney

Sam Donaldson, the news anchor from another century, once talked about polls and elections: “And on election night I’d go down to city hall in El Paso, Texas and cover the election. In those days, of course, we didn’t have exit polls. You didn’t know who had won the election until they actually counted the votes. I thought that was exciting too.”

There’ll always be many ways to illustrate the self-importance of journalists and their fixation on polls, but their fixation is a reflection of a political obsession in every time zone: media merely reflect it. With that bit of self-justification out of the way, let’s get on with any election’s equivalent of empty calories.

We’re launching this poll on June 21, the summer equinox. We’ll keep it live until Election Day, Nov. 6 (a few weeks before the winter equinox). And we’ll keep it somewhere near the front page as a barometer of where this election might go, keeping in mind that it is no more a predictor of the outcome on Nov. 6 than would be predicting the weather for the Magic Kingdom a hundred days (or even a hundred hours) out. You’re welcome to explain your vote in the comments. Let’s hope this comment thread is used as voters’ opportunity to take part in their own presidential debate, with at least half an eye on civility. Thank you for participating.