( CNN ) -- It 's all become a blur of polls , predictions and prognostication . The final days of the presidential race have been a head-spinning experience , giving us a collective case of vertigo as the media deliver their own ever-changing analyses while also conveying the strategists ' spin . If it were up to me , I would ban all reporting of campaign officials declaring that their guy is going to win , or that their internal polls actually show them ahead in Ohio or Florida . Unconstitutional , I know , but it would spare us all kinds of utterly useless information . We all want to know who 's going to win . But in a contest this tight , that 's almost impossible to forecast with any certainty . So journalists flock to each new tracking poll as if , at long last , the mystery will be solved and the future revealed . Right now , the consensus has congealed around the idea that President Barack Obama will win a second term . Maybe that 's right , but keep in mind that we imbue a 2- or 3-point lead by Obama in a state such as Florida with almost cosmic significance , even though his advantage may fall within the margin of error . Watch : Getting Campaign Vertigo from the Relentless Media Spin . Remember when some conservatives were carping that the media were skewing the polls in the president 's favor ? You do n't hear much of that since Mitt Romney surged in the surveys . The notion that a wide array of media organizations were cooking the books was as ludicrous as , say , the charge that the Obama administration was manipulating the unemployment figures . There has been a manic-depressive quality to reporting on the race , as the conventional wisdom has changed shape like an overactive amoeba . Watch : Late-Night Comics Savage Romney , Not Obama . A year ago , the media kept telling us that Obama would have an awfully difficult time winning re-election unless the economy improved . By the time Romney emerged from the GOP demolition derby , the betting was that he was so damaged he was unlikely to win . After the conventions , Romney was viewed as such a flop that conservative commentators started debating the reasons he would lose . Then came Obama 's disastrous first debate . Romney shot up in the polls , and the commentators started saying the president had blown the race . Only in recent days , in the wake of Hurricane Sandy , has the press pack shifted yet again to the notion that Obama will win enough swing states to get to 270 . That is , unless you believe Karl Rove and Dick Morris , both of whom have predicted a Romney victory on Fox News . Watch : Why Do Media Deem Obama-Christie Teamwork So Strange ? If Obama does win , the coverage of the president 's role in dealing with the hurricane -- and especially his bromance with Republican New Jersey Gov . Chris Christie -- might turn out to be a factor . Even Republicans are telling me that privately . Given the magnitude of the storm , journalists had little choice but to focus on Obama 's role as emergency coordinator , which relegated Romney to the sidelines after a period in which he had been gaining momentum . But the endless ink and airtime devoted to a Republican governor teaming up with a Democratic president during a crippling disaster was a bit troubling . Was it really so jaw-dropping that the two men might briefly put politics aside with so many lives lost and millions without power or gasoline ? The cynicism that permeated the coverage was disturbing . Watch : Enough With Campaigns Predicting They 'll Win . Of course , politics reared its head when unnamed Romney advisers told Politico that Christie had gone too far and their man had almost picked him as a running mate before changing his mind . And they all spoke anonymously , a practice with which journalists have long been too complicit . Now , mercifully , comes the actual vote . But if you think the media speculation game ends Tuesday , guess again . Sometime in the late afternoon , the first wave of exit polls will undoubtedly leak , either to Matt Drudge or some blogger , and spread like wildfire across the Web . These numbers will be about as reliable as those that convinced John Kerry 's team in 2004 that he had won the presidency . Smart consumers will ignore the hyperventilation and wait for actual votes to be tallied , old-fashioned as that might sound . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Howard Kurtz .
Howard Dean : Coverage of campaign has been a blur of polls and predictions . He says in a race this close , speculating about the results is a waste of time . Media should n't rely on campaign officials for information , he says . Kurtz : Beware of exit poll leaks on Tuesday ; they 're not reliable .