Actually, in 2004 I relied heavily on
http://www.electoral-vote.com/ which at that time had a very conservative bent. I just checked it again and it seems a lot less partison now, although I can't imagine that it has moved completely to the center. After all, here is what it says about "The Votemaster" who runs the site:
Is he qualified to be Votemaster?
Is James Carville? He has advised loser after loser after loser for years. The Votemaster has some modest qualifications as follows:
Knowledge of Computers. See above. He has also designed a number of previous Websites. At its heart, this site is about collecting, aggregating, analyzing, and presenting third-party election data in a convenient and pleasing form, so computer and Web design skills are really the key ingredients.
Knowledge of Polling and Statistics. He has a Ph.D. from the University of California and has taken graduate-level courses in math and statistics.
Knowledge of writing. After 17 books and 125 published papers, he is starting to get the hang of it.
Knowledge of politics. He has worked on numerous political campaigns going back to Reagan's first run for Governor of California. and has lobbied (for environmental legislation) in the California state legislature. He was elected as a voting delegate to the World Democrats Abroad caucus in Edinburgh in 2004 where he met many "insiders." He has access to precisely the same polling data as other election analysts, since there are only a small number of pollsters and they offer subscriptions to anyone who is willing to pay for it. Ultimately, all analysis comes down to studying the polls and extracting trends. By studying 1347 state polls and hundreds of national polls during the 2004 election cycle he acquired a bit of on-the-job training.
So I'll agree that you can be biased (although he really has chilled out since 2004) and still post unbiased polling numbers. Something about the name "Real Clear Politics" really sticks in my craw though so I won't be going there for my numbers. And besides the other site doesn't really seem like it's trying to hide its true agenda - I hate that kind of thing.