With the election only one week off, here's our daily barometer of the shifting tides between red voters (for conservative) and blue. We'll update it each day, as polls, gaffes, stories, endorsements, and other weird developments roll in. The Vote-O-Meter applies to Washington and is based on the Rossi-Murray race, Congressional contests, the Legislature, and ballot measures.

We start with the needle a couple notches on the red side, reflecting the national tides, the anti-incumbent mood, and the sense that Obama's visit didn't have much of an effect. We actually had it further to the red but have nudged it back for three reasons on Monday.

One was the influential columnist Peter Callaghan's branding of the ads for I-1107 (repealing the soda and candy tax) as the worst lies of all the initiative campaigns for falsely asserting that the tax is on groceries. Second needle-nudger was the prediction from the respected consensus poll FiveThirtyEight that Murray's late polling lead in the 2-3 percent range is holding up, giving her an 80 percent chance of prevailing next Tuesday.

The last factor was Sen. John McCain's awkward weighing in on behalf of Dino Rossi, excoriating Murray for her love of earmarks and praising Rossi for promising to eschew them. McCain is not exactly the most popular guy in this state. He invented Sarah Palin (which reminds a lot of local women why they like Murray) and his anti-earmark stance is unpopular because McCain is the chief foe of Boeing's Air Force tanker, a critical need for the local economy.

We welcome your comments and suggestions of stories and developments that can move the needle.