Clearly, Kerry Won

All the initial snapshot polls show that the electorate clearly felt that Kerry won and won by fairly large margins. Kerry was strong, concise, and forceful. Bush was weak, confused, and stumbling. There is no doubt who won the debate. Now, the spinners will have their say and we will see how this pans out in the coming days in the press and in future horse race polls.
Still, though, there is no doubt who won this debate. Was it a knock-out punch by Kerry? No, but it was certainly a heavy blow to Bush. It sets the bar much higher for him in future debates. We will see how he does. If I were a republican, (and thank God I'm not) I would be pretty worried about now. Because my candidate just proved about every joke that has ever been told about him in an hour and a half.
Meet our president, the joke.

Pre-Debate Analysis

I refuse to predict the winner of tonight's debate. It has become nearly impossible to predict with any confidence who the media will dub the winner, and for what reasons they will use to crown the winner. It really all depends on whether they decide to pick the winner on the basis of style, or if they pick on the basis of substance. If the media decides to choose a winner on style then the edge goes to Bush. If they turn towards a more substantive analysis then I think Kerry wins the debate.
I have to say that I have very little confidence that the spinners and pundits will choose substance over style. So, it may be an uphill battle for Kerry. Bush is one of those guys who is easy to beat in the battle of ideas, but hard to beat if he can out-twinkle you in the eye department.
However, I do believe that Kerry has a better chance of earning style points then Bush has of being substantive.
Still, it is a crap shoot, and not one that I would place a bet on one way or another.

Ohio Under Further Scrutiny

This from the Op-Ed page of the NY Times on Ohio's Secretary fo State problems:

"Just weeks before the deadline to register, Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state, instructed the state's county boards of election to reject registrations on paper of less than 80-pound stock - the sort used for paperback-book covers and postcards, compared with the 20-to-24-pound stock in everyday use. He said he was concerned about forms' being mailed without envelopes and mangled by postal equipment. But the directive applied to all registration forms, even those sent in an envelope or delivered by hand. Mr. Blackwell, a Republican, acted in the midst of an unprecedented state voter registration drive, which is signing up far more Democrats than Republicans."

State of the Race: Polling Update

This polling update from Taegon Goddard's Political Wire:

"The latest Economist poll shows the presidential race tied, with Bush and Kerry each getting 46%.

"The latest Democracy Corps poll (D) shows Bush slightly ahead of Kerry among likely voters, 49% to 46%. We noted their latest strategy memo yesterday."

State of the Race: 34 Days Left

On the eve of the first presidential election this is, I think, a pretty fair reflection of the polls:
Real Clear Politics Poll Average (This is essentially a poll done with an average of the last several polls.)
Bush/Cheney: 48.4%
Kerry/Edwards:44.0%

This is also very similar to the results of Rasmussen daily tracking poll:
Bush: 49.1%
Kerry:45.3%

Although, I would agree that the race has Bush up by about four points, I would also preface this lead by saying that his lead has softened significantly since the convention, and that media concentrated events, like, say, a debate, tend to reshake the race. So, I think these numbers, which I think have been consistent only in their inconsistency these past few weeks, will look quite different after tomorrow's debates. That could mean a bigger lead for Bush, a dead heat, or a modest lead for Kerry.

Also, my home state of Ohio has become a very interesting state this election period. At first I thought it was up for grabs. Then I was ready to concede it to the Republicans. However, after hearing that Democratic voter registration was up nearly 250%, I was ready to put it back into play. Then I got the word a few days ago that Secretary of State Kenneth "Vote Stealer" Blackwell was throwing away thousands of voter registration applications because they weren't on the right weight paper. Now, as way of an update, here is what's new in Ohio from the Columbus Dispatch:

"Critics charged that the confusion and inconsistency threatened to prevent tens of thousands of would-be voters from participating in the general election and could trigger lawsuits challenging the results. They also blasted Blackwell for issuing the directive less than a month before Ohio’s voter registration deadline and at a time when elections officials are working around-the-clock to keep up with record-smashing registration efforts in a presidential battleground state.

"'There could be chaos on election day, and at the very least there is going to be inconsistencies,' said Scott Britton, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio."

"'We should be making it easier for people to register to vote, not harder.'

"Jocelyn Travis, Ohio coordinator for the Election Protection coalition and People for the American Way Foundation, said, 'We can’t let a piece of paper stand between people and their right to register and vote.'"

Al Gore on Debating Bush

Here is an excerpt from an Op-Ed by Al Gore in today's NY Times:

"If Mr. Bush is not willing to concede that things are going from bad to worse in Iraq, can he be trusted to make the decisions necessary to change the situation? If he insists on continuing to pretend it is 'mission accomplished,' can he accomplish the mission? And if the Bush administration has been so thoroughly wrong on absolutely everything it predicted about Iraq, with the horrible consequences that have followed, should it be trusted with another four years?

"The biggest single difference between the debates this year and four years ago is that President Bush cannot simply make promises. He has a record. And I hope that voters will recall the last time Mr. Bush stood on stage for a presidential debate. If elected, he said, he would support allowing Americans to buy prescription drugs from Canada. He promised that his tax cuts would create millions of new jobs. He vowed to end partisan bickering in Washington. Above all, he pledged that if he put American troops into combat: 'The force must be strong enough so that the mission can be accomplished. And the exit strategy needs to be well defined.'

"Comparing these grandiose promises to his failed record, it's enough to make anyone want to, well, sigh."

If John Kerry should listen to anyone's advice on debating Bush it is Al Gore's.
But as Gore points out, there are many failures in Bush's previous term to use in the debate, but do not take him lightly:

"My advice to John Kerry is simple: be prepared for the toughest debates of your career. While George Bush's campaign has made 'lowering expectations' into a high art form, the record is clear - he's a skilled debater who uses the format to his advantage. There is no reason to expect any less this time around. And if anyone truly has 'low expectations' for an incumbent president, that in itself is an issue."

Posted by Paul Hina at 12:53 AM

Iraq Situation Going From Bad to Worse

This from the opening of a story in today's Washington Post:

"A growing number of career professionals within national security agencies believe that the situation in Iraq is much worse, and the path to success much more tenuous, than is being expressed in public by top Bush administration officials, according to former and current government officials and assessments over the past year by intelligence officials at the CIA and the departments of State and Defense.

"While President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others have delivered optimistic public appraisals, officials who fight the Iraqi insurgency and study it at the CIA and the State Department and within the Army officer corps believe the rebellion is deeper and more widespread than is being publicly acknowledged, officials say."

I really think that the Bush administration's continued inability to be honest to the American people about how badly the Iraq war is going will ultimately undermine their campaign for a second term.
This is why I still believe that Bush will lose the election.

State of the Race: 35 Days Left

I really don't know what to think about polls lately. They have been all over the place the past few weeks. The most troubling thing to me is that people constantly refer to polling as a science. But if it is truly a science you would think that the experiments would lead to slightly similar results instead of the crazy fluctuations we have seen recently. Two things are clear to me today.
1.) Bush is up by anywhere from 1-8 pts.
2.) Polling is not a science. It is an art, and people mix the colors the shade they want to see. This from the Electoral Vote Predictor:

"It is becoming increasingly clear that the pollsters are producing the results that the people paying the bills want to hear. Even pollsters who were once thought to be above suspicion are now suspicious. Gallup, for example, is now normalizing its samples to include 40% Republicans, even though the 2000 exit polls showed the partisan distribution to be 39% Democratic, 35% Republican. There is scant evidence that the underlying partisan distribution has changed much since then. Other pollsters also normalize their data, but most don't say how. Normalizing the sample to ensure the proper number of women, elderly voters, etc. is legitimate provided that the pollster publicly states what has been done."

Here are the results of Hot Gun Spy's unscientific community bumper sticker/political sign poll:
Kerry: 76%
Bush : 24%
I won't tell you how I got that number but I will tell you that I had a solid count, used some arithmetic, and am very comfortable with the results.

Today's Rasmussen Reports Numbers:
Kerry: 46%
Bush : 48%

Bush's Paper Endorses Kerry

Bush's hometwon paper is endorsing John Kerry. Here is an excerpt of their rationale:

"The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda.
"Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry, based not only on the things that Bush has delivered, but also on the vision of a return to normality that Kerry says our country needs.
"Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq."

It is always nice to see that there are some people out there that are willing to admit when they have made a mistake, like this newspaper did by endorsing Bush in 2000. Also, it is nice to see that they are able to wield their pen with a substantive and reasonable argument not to make the same mistake this time around.

Gallup Polls Are Full Of Holes

This from 'The Left Coaster' about those blatantly partisan Gallup polls:

"Gallup Is At It Again - Yesterday's National Poll Had 12% GOP Bias
"Gallup has done it again. After supplying CNN and USA Today with a poll two weeks ago that showed a double-digit Bush lead amongst likely voters that turned out to have a significant bias in its sample favoring the GOP, Gallup did it again yesterday.

"Except that yesterday, they not only did it again, they apparently felt that a 7% GOP bias wasn't good enough. So they perpetrated the same fraud upon the media (including their partners CNN and USAT) and voters and this time used a 12% GOP bias in their likely voter screen. I kid you not."

Two Questions:
1. How is Gallup still considered a legitimate polling organization?
2. Why is CNN/USA Today reporting those numbers without explaining the discrepancy in party ID?

My Electoral College: 5 Weeks To Go

Electoral College Predictor:
Kerry: 270
Bush: 268

I was ready to put Ohio into Kerry's column because of this article in the Times. The article shows that the Democrats are registering voters in Ohio at a staggering level. However, it turns out the Secretary of State, Kenneth "Vote Stealer" Blackwell is throwing away thousands of registration forms because they are not on the right paper. I suppose it would be redundant for me to tell you Blackwell is a Republican.
Republicans: The Proud Party of Voter Suppression.

The State of the Race: 38 Days Left

I may be putting both Ohio and Florida into Kerry's electoral pile for this week's predictor map because of this new information from the NY Times.

"A sweeping voter registration campaign in heavily Democratic areas has added tens of thousands of new voters to the rolls in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, a surge that has far exceeded the efforts of Republicans in both states, a review of registration data shows.

"The analysis by The New York Times of county-by-county data shows that in Democratic areas of Ohio - primarily low-income and minority neighborhoods - new registrations since January have risen 250 percent over the same period in 2000. In comparison, new registrations have increased just 25 percent in Republican areas. A similar pattern is apparent in Florida: in the strongest Democratic areas, the pace of new registration is 60 percent higher than in 2000, while it has risen just 12 percent in the heaviest Republican areas."

Those are huge numbers, and would not be showing up in recent polling data. After putting Ohio to rest over the past few months, I think it is time to reassess.

Rasmussen's Daily Tracking Poll:
Bush: 48%
Kerry:46%

Republicans Fishing for Votes with Idiot Bait

This from the New York Times:

"The Republican Party acknowledged yesterday sending mass mailings to residents of two states warning that "liberals" seek to ban the Bible. It said the mailings were part of its effort to mobilize religious voters for President Bush."

Just when you thought they couldn't get any lower.
Now, the question becomes: how much more ridiculous can they get?
By the way, I don't know one single secularist, including myself, that doesn't own a Bible.

The State of the Race: 40 Days Left

Faux News Poll w/o Nader
Bush: 45%
Kerry:43%

Faux News Poll w/Nader
Bush: 46%
Kerry:42%
Nader: 1%

Democracy Corps Poll
Bush: 47%
Kerry:45%

And from the Democracy Corps analyses:

"One week before the first presidential debate, the race has narrowed to a very competitive 2 points, 45 percent for John Kerry and 47 percent for George Bush. Frankly, that is where the race has stood for most of the year, with the exception of the spring when the race was tied and after the two conventions. For an incumbent president, 47 percent is barely at the edge of electability and represents Bush’s performance of four years earlier. Indeed, if this election were really held tomorrow, the country would be at risk of repeating the 2000 events."

The Electoral Vote Predictor:
Bush: 273
Kerry:255

Remember the predictor still has Maryland as a tie when every poll shows that Kerry is winning big there. Trust me, Kerry will win Maryland. I promise. Also, the predictor has New Mexico leaning republican from the Mason-Dixon polls, but those polls have been proven wrong again and again. Every poll I've seen in recent memory has New Mexico going to Kerry. I won't promise that NM will go to Kerry, but I will predict that it will. Give Kerry the ten electoral votes from Maryland, because they are rightfully his. Then take NM from Bush and give it to Kerry and the race is Kerry's with 270 electoral votes, leaving Bush with 268. I'd be pretty happy with that.
However, the predictor is giving Kerry Florida, and I am unsure about that one. People have been talking about how important Ohio would be. Forget Ohio! It will be Florida, again.

The State of the Race: 41 Days left

The above electoral map is how the map would look today according to polling done in all 50 states by the American Research Group.
Their electoral numbers (270 needed to win):
Kerry: 270
Bush: 253
Both West Virginia and Wisconsin are at a dead heat.

Here are the numbers from Electoral-Vote.
Kerry: 269
Bush : 253
Both Arkansas and Maryland are at a dead heat. However, ARG shows that Kerry is up by 9 in Maryland. They have Bush up by 3 in Arkansas.

Here is a graph of national poll numbers from the Polling Report. You'll notice how much of an anomoly Gallup's poll offers when compared to all other polls.

Conventional wisdom says that the biggest reason that Bush 1st was booted from office was not only because the economy was bad, but that he seemed out of touch with the bad economy. The current Bush administration has tried very hard not to repeat the first President Bush’s mistake. So, they are trying to make sure that the president lets the people know that he understands their economic problems and that he feels their pain.
Who would have thought that this president would actually repeat the same error that his father made in 92? Well, he has. Only this time Bush is not out of touch with the economy. He is out of touch with the war in Iraq.
The Kerry campaign has done a good job of painting Bush into a corner, and you can see it every time he tries to explain how things are going in Iraq. If Bush says we are making progress then our televisions inevitably tell a different story. If he admits that things are a mess then that gives Kerry the opening to blame the mess on the Commander-In-Chief, which by the way is squarely where the blame belongs.
Bush 2nd will be booted from office not just because the war is going badly, but that because he seems out of touch with how bad the war is actually going.
I think this reason above all other reasons will be the reason Bush repeats the error of his father, and he will hit the trash heap of history with the same hollow thud his father did in 1992.

State of the Race Update

This from the John Kerry Campaign website:

"The latest MSNBC poll has a Kerry lead of 45-44 that is similar to other recent polls. Bush’s wrong track (47) is larger than his right track (42) and Kerry leads on jobs and economy."

I don't know exactly where they got this poll, but it is there nonetheless. However, this could mean that Kerry's big Iraq speech squeezed through the news cycle long enough to catch some voters. It is still too early to tell. We'll definely need another week of polls to see where the race stands after Kerry's speech. However, it is clear that the race is tightening, and the Bush bounce has softened.

The State of the Race: 42 Days Left

Zogby Battleground Poll
Kerry: 297
Bush : 241

Electoral Vote Predictor (9/21/2004, w/ Arkansas and Florida completely tied, meaning 33 electoral votes still up for grabs.)
Kerry: 239
Bush : 256

Latest National Polls
Rasmussen
Bush 48%
Kerry 46%

Zogby
Bush 46%
Kerry 43%

By the way, I was polled today for the first time ever. I am not sure who it was that was polling me. It was an unidentified recorded voice, and after asking me who I would vote for if the presidential race were held today, it then went on to ask me whether or not there was a chance I would vote for Nader in the end. I thought this was a strange question to be asked after I had said that I was planning on voting for Kerry. The bigger question is: Was this a democratic polling group trying to find out if they might be losing votes to Nader? Or is it the Nader campaign doing some private polling? Your guess is as good as mine.

My Electoral College: Six Weeks To Go

Thanks to the LA Times for the Interactive Electoral Map
Final Predicted Electoral Count (270 needed to win)
Kerry: 281
Bush : 257

You may be wondering what information I would have that would lead me to my current totals, especially since most other electoral predictors are moving towards Bush. Well, I have some new information that leads me to believe that both Pennsylvania and Florida are quickly trending back towards Kerry after Bush's convention bounce. That is a total of 48 electoral votes, and I think if Kerry wins both those states then he wins the election. If you would have asked me yesterday afternoon I would have still given Kerry Pennsylvania but not Florida. Florida, again, may make all the difference.

Intangibles:
Last week, the only state I called an intangible was Colorado. Well, now I have a few more. I think all the following states could go either way: Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, Colorado, and Florida. That is 118 electoral votes that could go one way or another at this point. So, don't be surprised if this map looks a little different next week. But for now, this is my map.

Wobegon Must Read

This from Garrison Keillor:

"The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned—and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.

"In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics."

Sorry about all the cut and paste entries recently. I have been taking a break from the blog this past week, but I will be back tomorrow with my new electoral predictions.

"Iraq is a vision of hell"

This from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd:

"The administration has been so dazzling in misleading the public with audacious, mendacious malarkey that the Democrats fear the Bushies are capable of any level of deceit.

"Iraq is a vision of hell, and the Republicans act as if it's a model kitchen. The president and vice president brag about liberating Iraqis and reassure us that they are stopping terrorist violence at its source and inspiring democracy in the region by bringing it to blood-drenched Iraq.

"But what they haven't mentioned is that they have known since July that their rosy scenarios are as bogus as their W.M.D. That's when the president received a national intelligence estimate that spelled out "a dark assessment of prospects" for stability and governance in Iraq in the next 18 months, as Douglas Jehl wrote in today's Times. Worst-case estimates include civil war or anarchy.

"Unlike the president, the young men and women trying to stay alive in the unraveling chaos of Iraq can't count on their daddies to get them out of the line of fire."

"The Excuse Presidency"

Kerry, kicking it up a notch:

"At that convention in New York the other week, President Bush talked about his ownership society. Well Mr. President, when it comes to your record, we agree – you own it.

"Of course, the President would have us believe that his record is the result of bad luck, not bad decisions. That he’s faced the wrong circumstances, not made the wrong choices. In fact, this President has created more excuses than jobs. His is the Excuse Presidency: Never wrong, Never Responsible, Never to Blame. President Bush’s desk isn’t where the buck stops – it’s where the blame begins. He’s blamed just about everyone but himself and his administration for America’s economic problems. And if he’s missed you, don’t worry – he’s still got 48 days left until the election."

Oh, yea. That's what I'm talkin' about.

Bush's Sense of Entitlement

This from The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof:

"What troubles me is less Mr. Bush's advantage three decades ago and more his denial today. Mr. Bush's own route to avoid the draft underscores the disparities in America, yet his policies seem based on a kind of social Darwinism in which the successful make their own opportunities. His tax cuts and entire outlook seem rooted in ideas not of noblesse oblige, but of noblesse entitlement.
"One fall day in 1973, when Mr. Bush was a new student at Harvard Business School, he was wearing a Guard jacket when he ran into one of his professors. The professor, Yoshi Tsurumi, says he asked Mr. Bush how he wangled a spot in the Guard.
"'He said his daddy had good friends who got him in despite the long waiting list,' recalls Professor Tsurumi, who is now at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York. Professor Tsurumi says he next asked Mr. Bush how he could have already finished his National Guard commitment. 'He said he'd gotten an early honorable discharge,' Professor Tsurumi recalls. "I said, 'How did you manage that?'
"'He said, oh, his daddy had a good friend," Mr. Tsurumi said. 'Then we started talking about the Vietnam War. He was all for fighting it.'
"Professor Tsurumi says he remembers Mr. Bush so vividly because he was always making outrageous statements: denouncing the New Deal as socialist, calling the S.E.C. an impediment to business, referring to the civil rights movement as 'socialist/communist' and declaring that 'people are poor because they're lazy.'"

My Electoral College: 7 Weeks To Go

Thanks to the LA Times for the interactive electoral map.
As you can see, I have created an electoral map of how things might go if the election were held today.

Current electoral prediction:
Kerry: 269
Bush: 269

Now, if this electoral tie were to happen we would have a bit of a crisis on our hands. Luckily, the constitution has a plan for such a situation. The House of Representatives, in case of an electoral tie, would decide the presidency. So, with the Republicans running the show in the House there is little doubt as to who they would give the keys of the White House to.
However, the Senate picks the vice-president, and since some are predicting the Senate could be neck and neck with Republicans and Democrats, there is a possibility of a tie there as well. Then guess who has the vote to break the tie? That's right, Dick Cheney.
The State most likely to change: Colorado
Colorado went to Bush in 2000, but many pollsters are polling it for Kerry or the ever popular too-close-to-call. I almost put it in Kerry's corner, but I will wait for some more information before I make a final call on it.
However, here is a link to a Princeton professor's website where he calculates the probabilities of the state races for the electoral college. He predicts that Kerry has a 91% chance of winning Colorado. How does he have the electoral college? Kerry, 278. Bush, 260.
I will put up a new map every Monday until after the election. So, come back and check it out.

Kerry's Not Worried

This from a Time magazine interview with Kerry:

"We're in a stronger place than I've been in any campaign I've ever run before. You looked at the polls; there wasn't one of you who said I'd be the nominee. Well, I'm going to win this race because Americans want better leadership.

"As we get into those cold days of October and people's juices begin to flow and they measure us one to one, I'm confident that my record of fighting for this country since I was a young man is going to eclipse the disastrous choices that have been made by George Bush."

Even I had counted him out in the primaries. I was wondering when he would drop out. I didn't think in a million years that Kerry would be the nominee. So, I honestly believe that he is not worried. However, I wouldn't say that he is overly confident either. It is extremely difficult for a candidate to defeat an incumbent president. But anybody would have to concede that Kerry is in a good spot to pull out a victory in November.

Latest Rasmussen 3-day tracking poll:
Kerry 46.4%
Bush 47.2%

Current electoral predictions (270 needed to win):
Kerry: 269
Bush: 233
States that are too close to call: Maine, Nevada, and Florida

No, Kerry's not in a bad spot at all

The Fiction of the Media's "Bush Surge"

If you were to look at the trend of these polls then you might wonder why the media seems to have already given Bush a second term. I have my own theories, but those might be best kept to myself. I will say that the three polls that have been skewed towards Bush have been from ABC, CBS, and CNN. We won't even discuss the ridiculou Time and Newsweek polls. These are all really big networks with huge corporation behind them.
Liberal media, huh.

Bin Laden is Dead

This from Andrew Sullivan:

"BIN LADEN IS SURELY DEAD: I've believed this for a long time now, but the latest video from al Qaeda's 'Number Two,' Ayman al-Zawahri, gives more credence to the belief. We haven't had a real, live, authentically-dated video that authenticates bin Laden's existence for well over a year. Why not? Wouldn't it be of extreme importance to his followers that they be reassured that he is still alive?

Listen, Bin Laden loves a camera as much as Michael Moore and Ann "The Floating Head" Coulter. If he has not been on camera than he is dead. I was just thinking about this today, why else would Bin Laden's no. 2 come out with a tape and not have Bin Laden anywhere in sight? We know that Osama was on dialysis, and we know from previous tapes that he was sick. So, my conclusion is that he is buried in the dust of a cave somewhere. What does that mean as far as the war on terror is concerned? Nothing. Bin Laden was simply the instrument for the Jihad. The music plays without him. Thanks, partly, to Bush's Iraq debacle.

What Bounce?

We have been hearing a lot about a post-convention Bush bounce. This so-called bounce made many democrats nervous, especially after they saw the ridiculously inflated newsweekly polls that showed Bush with a double-digit lead. Well, if you have been reading my blog then you know all the reasons that these polls should not be trusted, and now we have the evidence.

New ICR Poll
Likely Voters w/Nader
Bush 46%
Kerry 46%
Nader 4%

w/o Nader among Likely Voters
Bush 48%
Kerry 46%

w/o Nader among Registered Voters
Bush 46%
Kerry 47%

In other words, it is a tie.

Also, Rasmussen Reports, who is doing a wonderful daily tracking poll, has these numbers out today:

Bush 48%
Kerry 46%

And the electoral map shows this:(270 needed for win)
Kerry 264
Bush 222
w/ Missouri, Colorado, Nevada, and Florida too close to call (completely tied), and Bush would have to win all of those states to win the election.
So, if Bush won Florida, Missouri and Colorado then he would have 269 electoral votes. If Kerry wins Nevada then he has 269 electoral votes. 269 for Kerry. 269 for Bush. 270 needed to win. I wonder who will decide that?
I am pretty sure it then has to go to the House of Representatives, which is strongly Republican. If the Republicans put Bush in the White House again then there will be mayhem in the streets, especially if Kerry were to win the popular vote.
If you think this country was a house divided in 2000, just wait.

Bush and Cocaine

I don't really know too much about the author Kitty Kelley or her reputation. Nor do I know that much about the reliability of the British paper The Mirror. So, I'll leave it up to you to judge the validity of either as a relevent source. With that preample out of the way, here is a piece from The Mirror about the upcoming Kitty Kelley book, "The Family : The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty":

"Author Kitty Kelley says in her biography The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, that the US President first used coke at university in the mid-1960s.
"She quotes his former sister-in-law Sharon Bush who claims: 'Bush did coke at Camp David when his father was President, and not just once either.'"

Now, to be honest, I could care less if Bush did coke or not, or when and where he did it for that matter. However, I do think some other voters will care, specifically the whole holier-than-thou crowd.
This book will definitely get some press, and it will not be good for Bush. His campaign certainly doesn't want to be talking about cocaine in September of an election year. But my hunch is they are going to have to talk about it whether they like it or not.

Bush Abortion Charge

I don't know why the news networks aren't running with this story:

"In the winter of 1971 George W. Bush was dating a woman named Robin Lowman (now Robin Garner). Miss Lowman became pregnant by Smirk and he arranged for her to have an abortion - which in the great state of Texas in 1971 was very illegal! Not to mention that George W. is running as a pro-life candidate for the presidency."

I don't know how much evidence is there to support the charge. You can read the whole article and make your own determination about that. However, a complete lack of evidence never stopped the media from dragging Kerry's heroic war record into question when the Swift Boat Veterans for Lunacy started spouting off their baseless charges.
One more piece of evidence that the media being liberal is an outrageous myth.

More On The New Polls

It looks like Newsweek has a poll that pretty much echoes the Time poll. Both have Bush up by eleven points. There are several reasons why I have problems with these polls. However, I won't go into all of them right now. One big reason is as Adam Nagourney from the New York Times writes:

"And while the verdict is out on Mr. Bush's convention - beware polls taken over the Labor Day weekend, which can be quite unreliable - it seems safe to say that at least going into last week, none of these once reliable big moments have proved to be very big at all."

Also, it seems to me that, even though the Bush people love to cheese up the numbers on television, both campaigns know that these numbers are hopelessly inflated. This from Josh Marshall:

"A note on polls: as of the day after the convention I'm told by what I believe to be reliable sources that the internal polls of both campaigns had President Bush up roughly four points on John Kerry."

Even other pollsters are ready to dismiss both the Time and Newsweek polls. This from DailyKos:

"Whatever it is, it's real (which is why all the polls show it) but probably exaggerated by the newsweeklies. As a poster in a previous thread noted, Scott Rasmussen agrees with Zogby even taking account the Times poll (comments made before Newsweek[editor's note, by DemFromCT]He adds Newsweek to his suspect list today) that the lead is closer to 3 than 11, but that there is now (in this snapshot moment of time) a lead."

So, did Bush get a bounce? Certainly he did. Does he have a double-digit lead? No, he does not. Democrats, including myself, need to just take a deep breath and relax. Let's wait and see where the polls are next week, and then we can better assess where we stand.
This race is not over, not by a long shot.

Having a Beer with Kerry

Now who is the candidate you could have a beer with?

How 'Bout Those Polls?

I just wanted to say something about today's strange Time poll. If you look at the three last polls taken, it is outrageous to believe that the first two got it that wrong. It is also hard to believe that the Time poll could be a that much of an anomoly. I am prepared to concede that Bush got a bounce. I cound even accept a five, six, or even a seven point bounce--but eleven points is far too much of an anomoly to believe.
It is also alarming that Time magazine makes no attempt in either their statement or methodology or in their preface to the poll on their website about the extreme differences between its poll and the other recent polls. I think it should be the responsibility of the polling group to state that, even though they can not dispute the numbers they received, they should concede that it is statistically inconsistent with other polls taken during the same time period.
And if you think this is just sour grapes on my part, it is not. I would be skeptical if Kerry got a double-digit lead in a poll if several others polls showed him with marginal or no gains. However, I would also be excited, and then when the other polls started to show that the double-digit poll was an anomoly, well, I would be pissed off. And trust me there are a lot of happy Republicans this weekend, but the party will crash by the beginning of next week. Because even if Time magazine won't do their job, then I will.

Time Magazine's Poll is a statistical anomoly. And it should not be taken seriously.