Presidential-Poll-Tracker-Logo-4• John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation, points to the latest Thom Tillis vs. Kay Hagan poll taken for The New York Times and CBS News and urges people not to dismiss online polls out of hand. This one has Tillis slightly ahead of Hagan, which, of course, prompted the Hagan camp to say, well, it’s just and online poll. “When it comes to election polls, all that really matters is their predictive value. As automated calls and Internet surveys have become more prevalent in the market (thanks to matters of cost and reliability), their results have become easy to compare with traditional live-questioner work,” Hood advises.

TIME magazine finds that veterans’ groups are especially vicious this elections cycle, and one of the targets they’re zeroing in on most aggressively is Democratic N.C. Sen. Kay Hagan.

• The ultra-left-wing website Daily Kos has gone all in for Democrat Laura Fjeld in the race for N.C.’s 6th Congressional District. Maybe the Kossacks don’t know, but for a North Carolina district this is like being endorsed by the Soviet Central Committee Chairman back in the day. Wouldn’t be surprised if Republican nominee Mark Walker didn’t put out his own press release on this news.

• Clay Aiken, fresh from his fund-raising trip to San Francisco’s Castro district, says incumbent Republican 2nd District Rep. Renee Ellmers just does the bidding of her party’s leaders. “I don’t care if you are Republican or Democrat, just listening to what your party leaders tell you to do and not doing what’s right for the people in your district is unacceptable,” the “American Idol runner-up said. He related this charge to support for Ft. Bragg, implying that Ellmers, who most observers would say has been a staunch advocate for the state’s military presence, was soft on military support.