This edition is reaching you late because I drove 350 miles to a small town in Southwestern Virginia for a pro-life rally in support of pro-life Sen. John McCain this morning. By the time I returned, it was already 5:00.

There are now four polls that show Sen. McCain within three points of pro-abortion Sen. Barack Obama. They include the GWU/Battleground, IBD/TIPP (which was the most accurate in predicting the outcome of the 2004 presidential election), Gallup, and Rasmussen. Here's Rasmussen's two-sentence opening summary:

"The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows Barack Obama attracting 50% of the vote nationwide while John McCain earns 47%. This is the first time McCain has been within three points of Obama in more than a month and the first time his support has topped 46% since September 24."

And it's not just the closing of the gap, it's how. There appears to be a swing in Sen. McCain's direction among undecideds while the battle for the Catholic vote--which at one point seemed to be one of McCain's greatest weaknesses--is now even-steven. There also seems to be favorable movement among women without college degrees earning less than $60,000.

By the time I reached Abingdon my eyes were so blurry I had trouble finding the building where the rally was being held. But the people were so friendly, so kind, and so inspired that I quickly revived.

The main speaker was pro-life former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, one of the many fellow Republicans McCain defeated to secure the GOP presidential nomination. Gov. Huckabee, as always, was relaxed, funny, passionate, and a source of energy off of which the group was clearly feeding. Sen. McCain could ask for no stronger or more articulate a surrogate.

This is the third region in Virginia where I have gone to witness a McCain function. Each time I have learned something new.

For our purposes here, the most important consideration is that the crowd understood their region's key role in winning Virginia, which is indispensable to the McCain/Palin ticket. And they were even more aware that this is a part of the state that they must not only win, but win with the kind of sizable margins required to help offset areas in the state Sen. Obama will carry handily.

The polls in Virginia continue to show Obama ahead. I will just say for the record, this cannot possibly be true. The Commonwealth may well be among the two most competitive states come next Tuesday.

I came away greatly encouraged. Had you been there, so would have you.

Don't forget to email me at dadandrusk@aol.com, and I will respond back with an email that has NRL's superlative comparison piece as an attachment that you can forward to your entire email list.