This is in no way meant to be an accusation of wrong doing, present or future. Just a speculation. A shudder, if you will, at what might be planned by certain folks, not part of the McCain campaign to be sure, but perhaps a shadow of the RNC.
Step one would be to get a mole involved in some of the polls. One or maybe two, yes, outliers to be sure, that suggest Obama is losing ground in say, Pennsylvania and Ohio. These polls may be challenged by other pollsters, but if enough news organizations give them lots of attention, without questioning the results, or comparing them to other polls, (as even MSNBC did yesterday morning) this establishes, if not a ground of probability, at least a sense of plausibility.
Step two would be to use the electronic machines, including optical scans, and shift the results just far enough to hand these states to McCain. Since the predictions were outliers, thus calling all the polls into question, votes can be shifted here and there across the board, without causing too much suspicion, at least from the pundits.
Of course this is paranoid. And why should I even be thinking like this? Despite all my efforts to calm myself I can't stop feeling anxious. I think I have residual PTSD from 2000 and 2004. Why else would it be that I fixate on this scenario at 3 am in the morning, whenever I worry about who our next "Commander in Chief" might be.