Great read, Dooby.
Here's an interesting indicator of sorts. It's an electronic futures market hosted by the University of Iowa business school. It works like a stock market. You buy a "share" of a candidate, and you collect one dollar if your candidate wins the election. You collect zero if he loses. Bush is currently trading at around 60 cents, Kerry around 40. They were trading close to dead even before the Republican convention.
That's the winner-takes-all market. They also have a market that pays you off one penny per share for every percentage point the candidate earns of the popular vote. Current quotes have Bush at 50.6 cents per share, Kerry at 49.3 cents.
This is real money people are throwing around here. (It sure sounds like gambling to me! Interesting that this stuff is legal.) Apparently it's been pretty accurate over the years.
Iowa Electronic Markets