now hitting the blogs, soon to hit the TV news, a Newsweek story on the stands tomorrow indicating that Colin Powell believes the insurgents are winning in Iraq.

MSNBC - Hell to Pay

Hard to tell what gets through the noise, but Powell is still a name that means something with independents and moderate GOPers. It could get Iraq back at the top of the news, except of course on Fox which continues to try to whip up panic over the Osama tape.
It's one way Fox has for obscuring the fact that Bush has lost 7 points in its poll in the past two weeks.

V Minus 2

To be fair, Newsweek and ABC are saying the last minute tilt is towards Bush. Josh Marshall thinks the media is being gamed again by the Rove machine, which did precisely the same thing in 2000, when polls showed Bush ahead by several points (as many as 12). We haven't seen much evidence of this tilt. Most of the national tracking polls have moved only slightly, and usually in Kerry's direction. The Osama effect seems to be subtle if even present. As of today, Kerry maintains a one point lead in the Washington Post poll, has moved up to a 2 pt lead in Fox, and is tied in Zogby and the Fox three-way.

If you go with the theory that Bush has to be over 50 percent at this point, he's toast. If you believe that turnout will determine the election, especially by new voters, ditto. And if you look at state polls, the same. Here's another indication quoted by Electablog though not sourced:
37% of Kerry voters said this is the most important election of their lifetime, while only 27% of Bush supporter said the same.

There is a new Ohio poll out showing a tie. Michael Moore has organized some 1200 videographers to tape at polling places in Ohio, and an effort to do the same in Wisconsin is being mounted. These two states along with Florida seem the prime but not the only targets for GOPer voter suppression and intimidation, including challenges.

The final tally on newspaper endorsements show 42 papers that endorsed Bush in 2000 have switched to endorsing Kerry, while 15 went neutral. Only 6 switched from Gore to Bush.

Happy Halloween (or in Lake Woebegon, where fundamentalist protestors got the name changed, Happy Fall Festival. Garrison says the spirit of Halloween is that it's better for good people to dress up and pretend to be evil, than evil people to dress up and pretend to be good.)

The official AmericanSamizat Halloween chant of 2004 (picked up from somewhere on the blogosphere):
Bush is scary
Vote for Kerry

V minus 2.5
actually less than that in most of the country but...

The bad news is continued voter suppression efforts. In Wisconsin the R party is demanding that EVERY voter be required to show an ID or they will challenge EVERY voter. It's in the courts. And nationally, the Ashcroft Justice department has gone to several state courts with the same claim---that voters can't sue to restore voting rights, only Ashcroft can! Here's the LA Times story:
Bush Seeks Limit to Suits Over Voting Rights

The good news: the latest state polls! Kerry is up by 3pts in New Hampshire, 3 pts. in Iowa and by 8 points in Minnesota. Kerry is up by 1 in New Mexico and by 1 in PA. Nevada is tied, and Bush is only up by 3 now in Virginia, which hasn't been in play for months. And New Jersey, where Bush went just a week or so ago (who can keep track of the time), Kerry is up by 12.

The last Ohio poll (before this batch) had Bush up by 3, but there should be new ones coming Sunday. Kerry will be in Ohio Sunday and Monday (though in other states too.)

Also: Democracy Corps polled 250 voters Saturday morning, equal number of Dems and Rs. The horserace remained unchanged from pre-Osama: Kerry up by 1 pt. They asked specifically about the Osama tape: did it make you think Bush took his eye off the ball, or think positively about Bush's approach to terror. The first prop won by 10.

Why Some People Vote for Bush

It's difficult to understand why anyone would vote for Bush, given his record. It's been the most disastrous presidency in our lifetime, characterized by deceit, incompetence and extremism. It has resulted in untold suffering at home, and death and more suffering abroad.

Bill Moyers' Now on Friday catalogued the ideologically driven deceit leading up to the war in Iraq, with the help of a man who had been an intelligence expert in the Bush state department, a career expert named Thielmann. His commentary on what American intelligence knew and was analyzing totally devastates the Bush case. (We've stolen from this segment for some of our 99 reasons.)

But he said something quite profound that goes to the heart of American support for Bush. He called it the psychological element: "a desire to believe the President of the United States. The realization that the President of the U.S. would knowingly distort issues, or even negligently misinform them on issues that will result in the deaths of American sons and daughters, is so monstrous, that most good and decent and patriotic Americans can't believe that. They don't want to believe that. That's just too awful to contemplate, that the President would do that to them."


Speaking of psychology, here is C.G. Jung's description of an inflated consciousness:
"...always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own presence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing the right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead."

99 Reasons to Vote for Kerry cont.

3. Osama still at large is Bush failure. Kerry has the judgment and experience to take advantage of opportunities, like Tora Bora, to effectively fight terrorists.

4. A fresh start in Iraq now. Chaos and killing accelerate, while Cheney calls Iraq "a remarkable success story."

5. Fresh start in the world, after Bush lies ruin U.S. credibility. "Once you've been misled on an issue, you're very reluctant to give [the U.S.] the benefit of the doubt." Former intelligence official Thielmann. What are those lies?

6. "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is now amassing them to use against our friends, our allies and against us."-Cheney

7. " We know that [Iraq] is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon....No terrorist state poses a greater threat to us than Iraq."
--Cheney

8. Of the aluminum tubes in Iraq, Condi Rice said, they were "only suited for nuclear weapons." Bush stated the same, though state department, intelligence and energy department experts agreed the opposite.

9. When UN atomic energy experts went to Iraq and examined the tubes, they announced there was no evidence they were for nuclear program. Their findings were ignored by Bushies.

10. UN arms inspectors in Iraq, given extraordinary access by Saddam Hussein, find no evidence of WMD. They are ignored and the U.S. invades.

11.On Iraq: "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the first proof---the smoking gun that can come in the form of a mushroom cloud." GW Bush. At the same time as state department experts were saying that Iraq did not pose an imminent security threat to the U.S. It did not pose the same magnitude of threat of North Korea.

12. Kerry will replace Condi Rice, who is either incompetent, irresponsible or not telling the truth---or all three.

13. Kerry will replace Colin Powell, whose "credibility has been spent."

14. Kerry will replace Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, chief architects of the disastrous mistakes in Iraq: the war in the first place, the failures once there, and the attempts to cover it all up.

15. Bush is damaged goods, and re-elected, he will be ineffective in the world. America needs a fresh start. People don't like to criticize the person in power, or the leader in time of war. But this campaign has revealed so much disenchantment with Bush, not just from Democrats but from moderate Republicans, leaders of other nations, diplomats, career government experts, economists, scientists, recent U.S. military leaders, and even fiscal conservatives and libertarian Republicans, that Bush can never unite the country, or adequately represent the country to the world.

ELECTION PROTECTION CARD

You can find it at moveonpac.org. For some reason I can't get a link to the exact page there, but a link to it is on the opening page of the site.

MoveOn PAC

The card is printable, so you can take it with you to the polls. It's got numbers to call in various states if you're having a problem voting or you see some problem.

V Minus 3

There are a number of election predictions emerging, many if not most foreseeing a Kerry victory. Even conservative Tucker Carlson is calling it for Kerry. A good analysis from an unbiased source (he's Canadian, and a political veteran) is here (the meat of it is towards the end):

CBC News - Viewpoint: Robert Vipond

Newsweek sees a trend towards Bush, though their polling data is questioned. Zogby's tracking poll has Kerry up a point for the first time in awhile, but at this point these little movements can be polling noise. The swing state polls continue to be close, either way, but Kerry leads in more of them than does Bush. So far the dynamics haven't seemed to change, and its turnout still.
That probably won't change.

Those poor guys at MSNBC. They do their best to become another Fox but every time they have a call-in poll, Bush loses. Right now Kerry is leading as the candidate who will do the more effective job in the war on terror, by 70% to 30%.

So far on this Saturday the TV news hasn't been dominated by the Osama tape, but the election is still the main story, followed by Marines killed in Iraq, a human rights group saying that they warned U.S. officials in Iraq about another huge missile and munitions cache left unguarded, but were ignored.

Although the Bushies are gloating over the Osama tape (one campaign official called it a "gift"), and some pundits are giving advantage to Bush, others and reporters are adding these factors 1. most voters have already made up their minds. 2. the tape cuts both ways, reminding people that Osama is still at large. CNN seems to be playing it pretty even-handedly. After showing Bushie officials fanning the flames by talking of new terrorist attacks (and saying that they don't think they're coming), they interviewed a terrorism expert on why on earth Osama is still not captured--and he confirms that the overwhelming evidence is that Osama was in fact at Tora Bora during that battle, just as Kerry says.

More later on these AmericanSamizat stations.

99 Reasons to Vote for Kerry

Let's see if we can do this by election day.

Reason #1: Not voting for Kerry is a vote for Bush. This is the premise of many reasons to come, a meta-reason. If you stay home, you're playing into Bush's hands, because suppression of the vote favors his re-election. And I hope we've all learned the Nader lesson. Even here in California, it's important to vote for Kerry. The polls show Kerry is farther ahead in Maryland than he is in California.

Reason #2 You hope to take a trip out of the country in the next four years. The New York Times had an item about a reporter covering a conference in Italy buying postcards, and asking to buy stamps to send them to America. The man behind the counter said one word, or expletive: Boosh. And turned his back, refusing to sell him anything. Everybody who has been to Europe or Australia or even Canada in the past couple of years has similar stories. I've noticed that in those interviews with "swing" voters, it often comes up: people who have been abroad have a whole new perspective on what the U.S. is doing, and how it is perceived.

The Osama Effect

On Friday before the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, a tape of Osama bin Laden talking mostly to Americans is rippling across the mediascape. What does it mean?

First, and this is a wild guess, if not a wild charge, it may be Act I in the October/November Surprise. The immediate effect of Osama's appearance is to prove that he is still alive. The tone of the message is relatively subdued, and one is tempted to say a self-elegy. Could Osama know that his capture or killing is imminent, and he has issued this last message? Are we going to wake up to that news on Monday? Or is it the accidental setup to a major attack on Faludja over the weekend or on Monday?

The political content of the Osama message is that American security is not up to Kerry or Bush or al Qeda but the American people, presumably meaning the American policy in the Middle East. But Osama does single out Bush for specific insult, as if he'd seen the scene in Michael Moore's film of Bush sitting stunned in front of schoolchildren after he's learned of the Twin Towers attacks.

Bush's first reaction to the tape was remarkably statesmanlike, Kerry's was also statesmanlike and nonpartisan while rather skillfully boosting his own credentials as a terrorist fight. However in a very short time, everybody--including Bush and Kerry--- were trading charges and accusations again.

So far we've seen two prominent blogs comment, kos and Marshall's Talking Points, and they both caution that the tape's release may not be a major factor in the election, especially to Bush's advantage. That's apparently the opinion of some TV talking heads, though that caution could change should one side or another get control of the spin over the weekend.

Maybe it's wishful thinking but absent Act II, we agree. That bin Laden is hale and hearty actually supports Kerry's arguments that Bush took his eye off the war on bin Laden to go after Saddam and in the process, has provided more new terrorists and ammunition than bin Laden had ever dreamed of.

The test of the tape's effect will be if it is dominating the news on Monday. It's the weekend, with Halloween in it. Foremost on many people's minds is to remember to set the clock back an hour Sunday night. But Monday will be the last time a lot of people will focus on the news the media is reporting.

It is also so late in a year when the undecideds are few that there aren’t too many votes to influence. Some soft supporters of one candidate may switch, of course, based on what they are most afraid of and who they feel will protect them. Though Bush does much better on terrorism in polls of those people being polled, the other major stories of the week---the missing munitions, the favoritism to Halliburton—--fall into line with Osama’s sudden reappearance in Kerry’s argument that Bush, however resolute, is resolutely screwing up with tragic results, likely to get worse. How this tape affects your feelings depends on where your thinking is. To us, it’s a strong argument for Kerry. It will be for others, too. It may do some damage in skewing the momentum Kerry had been building among undecideds, splitting some folks off. But it is unlikely to affect the new voters and the Remember the Chads disenfranchised who are the army of the future.

Although the impact of the tape may be to raise fears of a new attack, its appearance and message that Americans can guarantee their own security by not intervening in the Middle East, seems to suggest that no attack is imminent, especially aimed at disrupting the election, if anyone was afraid of that any longer.

But its specific impact won't be known until after the election, if ever. The polls that will come out this weekend won't measure it, and polls taken on weekends are even less reliable than others.

V Minus 4

Friday
Several news sites today are reproducing the last polls from the year 2000, especially the CNN tracking poll which gave G.W. Bush 52% to 39% for Gore, going into the final weekend. Questioning the reliability of polls is becoming a chorus, and pollsters seem to be ducking their heads by issuing tie votes whenever possible.

This pollster caution in substance and flair in show biz also characterizes the TV network plans for election coverage, but more on that later.

As if this election needed more drama, the five day weather forecasts for swing states are just as iffy as the polls. Most call for cloudy with a chance of rain. No clear skies. No prediction of rain. Undecided. A tie.

However, everybody talks about the weather and the polls, because they have to talk about something. And the latest state polls, issued in the past two days and covering this current week, show that Kerry has a lead in PA, Michigan, Florida, Oregon and Wisconsin. One poll has a tie in Florida, and different polls give Bush a lead in Wisconsin and Iowa (by 1%).

This year's Florida has been the subject of speculation. What state tips the balance? For a long time it was Ohio or Pennsylvania, and now the favorite is Wisconsin.

Here's the thing. There are a growing number of observers who either predict a Kerry victory or who say that the outcome may not be as close as it seems, which if you accept the trend lines amounts to the same thing. Everybody knows a record number of new voters have registered. Most accept that Democrats have at least a slight edge overall and in most states. The question is whether these folks will vote.

Some won't, because registering became easier in lots of places, the commitment of a minute or two at a shopping center or a concert. But the level of feeling is so high, especially among those who are afraid for the country if Bush is re-elected, and who are offended by what he has done with their goodwill post 9-11. Those people are going to vote, and Republicans aren't going to stop them.

The word coming out of Miami-Dade (where the Boss appears with Kerry tonight, after a rally in Madison, Wisc. yesterday that drew 80,000---and marched many of them to the polls immediately afterwards for early voting) is that Kerry could take a 100,000 vote victory just in that county.

Lots of people in Florida and elsewhere have lined up for hours to vote early (which may mean that most voters will have a faster trip to the booth when many more polling places open---but everyone should be prepared to stand in line for awhile. It should be a blissful wait.) Others will vote this weekend. But everything depends on total turnout, especially on Tuesday.

So before getting on the phone again to recruit volunteers in the swing states, we've got some errands, including picking up some sweets for the Haloweeners, with enough excess to get us through the weekend. And in that regard, there was yet another poll this week, of the most villainous villain in this year's movies. Somebody called Leatherface got second place, a character in some horror movie. First place? The scary star of Fahrenheit 9-11: George W. Bush.

mr. right gets it wrong?

Bob Novak, the elder "Mr. Right" on Crossfire, boasted Thursday that pollster John Zogby, who came the closest to getting 2000 right, had changed his mind from April (when he thought Kerry would win) and now predicted a Bush win. Hours later, on "The Daily Show," Zogby himself appeared and when asked his prediction, said quickly and succinctly, "Kerry."

J. Stewart made sure he wasn't kidding and wasn't saying something else "on other shows."
No, Zogby thinks Bush's numbers are too low, and undecideds are likely to break for Kerry. As noted previously, the Pew scholars have concluded that so far the undecided have in fact been breaking more for Kerry.

So besides Bush, Cheney and Gulliani, Mr. Right has some explaining to do Friday.

What It Means

David Kay, U.S. arms inspector, confirmed to Aaron Brown that the Twin Cities video shows that U.S. troops found the sealed, high-powered explosives now missing. He said that the presence of those explosives had been known since 1991, and it was one of the most important sites in Iraq. He finds it incredible that U.S. forces didn't know what they were seeing, but since they knew at least they were seeing explosive powder of some kind, that the facility wasn't secured. Bush has been attacking Kerry for wild charges and not knowing the facts, but this fact is certainly not contradicted by the video: the Bush league team ordered troops to guard the oil ministry, but not huge caches of dangerous explosives.

If that isn't bad enough, the truly frightening comment Kay made was this: the munitions present in Iraq, most in the hands of insurgents, is equal to two-thirds of the non-nuclear munitions possessed by the U.S. armed forces. Not just in Iraq. Everywhere.

On a related issue, the FBI has opened a CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION into favoritism in granting a no-bid contract to a subsidiary of Halliburton for Iraq. According to one report, a Defense Department whistleblower has an email which shows White House involvement, specifically the office of vice president Cheney. The investigation led Thursday's Hardball, with Chris Matthews opining that this has the potential to crystallize the Democratic charges of Bush and Republican favoritism to huge corporations.

Apart from the name of the Iraqi prison, there has been no more potent word this year than Halliburton.

Pundits argue whether there are any undecideds left, or whether they are reachable on issues. But it's hard to see how Bush is helped by headlines clearly demonstrating incompetence that has led to Americans being killed and crippled, and that enriched a partisan corporation in a war that a new Johns Hopkins estimate says killed 100,000 Iraqi civilians, many of them children. Perhaps this won't change minds, but only further sicken hearts. Tonight we mourn those hundred thousands, and our thousands. Tomorrow we resolve to stop these people with our ballots before they do even more harm.

FBI INVESTIGATING HALLIBURTON!

USATODAY.com - FBI investigating how Halliburton got Bush administration contracts

If you don't hear about this on the TV news tonight, call them up and ask why not!

No Doubt Now

kos has photos from the Twin Cities TV station proving the munitions were under seal at the Iraqi dump when U.S. troops arrived and looked at them. Scroll down the kos page to see:

Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.

Additionally, the NY Times is reporting Iraqi sources saying that the explosives were looted during the U.S. occupation.

V Minus 5


The missing explosives in Iraq continues to be an explosive issue in America. President Bush's first comment on it has furnished the Kerry campaign with a potentially damaging ad line: "For a political candidate to jump to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as Commander in Chief." Today Rudy Guliani blamed failure to find the munitions on the troops. A Minnesota TV station believes it has footage of American troops in fact finding the munitions which have since disappeared.

The polls aren't showing much movement, and they continue to be all over the place. However, at least one poll within the past two days gives Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, PA, Ohio, Florida, Colorado, New Mexico, Michigan to Kerry. But other polls show Bush slightly ahead in several of those states. Chuck Todd of the Hotline now has 10 disputed states, and believes the pollsters don't have a handle on the race and are too unsure of their numbers to be credible. Polls weigh for turnout, and nobody knows how high the turnout will be.

One indication of turnout is Florida, where thousands have already voted. A poll of those voters shows Kerry leading by 17 points, but the size of the poll makes the margin questionable.

While Zogby tracking poll continues to show Bush ahead nationally, the Economist is one of several new polls giving Kerry a 49% to 46% edge. The Economist has also endorsed Kerry; the magazine endorsed Bush in 2000.

The Pew Research Center issued a report saying that Kerry has picked up more undecided voters in the past month than Bush, and the overwhelming factor was his performance in the debates. This contrasts with CNN etc. who keep saying that the race is back to where it was before the debates.

To be fair to the cable stations, the other night CNN's Aaron Brown responded to Dick Cheney's comment that Iraq is a "remarkable success story" with a blistering recap of the situation and a rebuke. On MsNBC, the voice of reason continues to be the voice of Reagan---Ron Reagan---who said yesterday that the importance of the missing explosives in Iraq isn't whether they were there after U.S. troops arrived, but that the Bushies hadn't ordered the troops to look for them. And he characterized Bush's misstatements of Kerry's words as "lying."

The strongest hope for Kerry supporters continues to be turnout and the Get Out the Vote Effort. Several of the lefty blogs are showering praise on the professionalism of the combined effort of traditional Democratic party and union efforts and the new organizations, all working together under the rubric of America Votes.

On the ground organization suggests not only that all of the swing states are in play, but that some generally given to Bush---Arizona in particular---are also in play.

The mainstream media has picked up the story of attempts to prevent or discourage voters, which has had some good effects in shining some light on Ohio, for instance. There the state's newspapers had little to say about GOPer efforts to subvert voting rights until the national media ran with the story. However, the prospect of possible conflict on voting day, resulting in challenges and at the very least, long lines, could in itself discourage voting. Which makes election day get out the vote efforts all the more important.

And activists and reporters are already looking at 7 day weather forecasts for Tuesday. In a normal year, the weather could decide a close race. This doesn't appear to be a normal year.

Not when the Boston Red Sox win the World Series, during a full lunar eclipse. Not only is Boston John Kerry's hometown team, but the St. Louis Cardinal ownership has strong ties to Bush, having formerly owned the Texas Rangers when Bush was their front man.

T-Shirt of the Day: Drop Bush, Not Bombs.
Button of the Day: Bring Back Complete Sentences. Vote Kerry-Edwards.

Twelve Ways Bushies trying to steal the Ohio vote:

Twelve Ways Bush is Now Stealing the Ohio Vote

V Minus 6

The missing explosives story continues to stay in the news, with evidence accumulating that the explosives were lost after American troops were there and victory was declared. Now the story begins to emerge that Bush plans to ask for an additional $70 billion to pay for Iraq and Afghanistan, and an additional 20,000 troops.

Also making news, the Iraqi government accusing U.S. of gross negligence in deaths of Iraqi national guard. Under the radar but significant: North Korea has refused to rejoin nuclear talks because of the U.S. hostile attitude.

Campaign news: Kevin Drum via kos reports that in a survey by Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who factors in minority turnout based on 2000 exit polls, plus census changes since 2000, the race in 12 battleground states goes from a tie to Kerry by more than five points. Fabrizio concludes that unless the GOPers successfully suppress the minority vote, Bush is doomed.

Turnout is going to be a key indicator, with high turnout favoring Kerry. But we don’t have to wait for election day to catch the drift: in early voting states, turnout is tremendous. Hundreds of thousands have already voted in Florida, despite sporadically successful efforts to destroy Democratic registrations and lose tens of thousands of absentee ballots in Broward County.
Early voting is also high in Nevada.

The Zogby national tracking poll, which showed Bush up several points, is closer to even.
"Today was a big day for Kerry," pollster John Zogby said.
Kerry has consolidated his base support just as Bush did early in the race, taking a 2-to-1 lead among Hispanics, 90 percent of blacks, 84 percent of Democrats, 55 percent of union voters and 65 percent of singles. Only 4 percent of likely voters remain undecided.

CBS poll has Kerry up 4 points in Florida, after ordering a revision of a poll which showed Kerry up 8 to 9 points.

If you're watching a lot of cable news, you're not getting the impression that we're building towards a Kerry victory, until you notice how nervous the anchors and reporters are. They've built their entire makeovers on attracting the Fox audience, and now they're also fighting reality. Look also at the affect of Bush and Cheney vs. that of Kerry and Edwards on the campaign trail, and you know the GOPers are worried, the Dems are excited.

We’ve been talking personally with people in battleground states, and there is high interest among Kerry supporters in helping get out the vote on election day. The passions are cresting.

We need minority voters to show the kind of courage we saw in the Civil Rights movement, to fight for their rights to vote. We need the energy of young people and the dedication of the rest of us to make sure registered voters, especially newly registered voters, get to the polls.

Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender.

V Minus 7

Four new state polls show Kerry ahead in Florida. All state polls show Kerry ahead in Pennsylvania. The latest state poll shows Kerry ahead in Ohio.

Two analyses of electoral votes, one at Cal State, one at Princeton, predict a Kerry victory.

The big news at the beginning of this week is the huge missing cache of powerful ammo in Iraq, apparently looted over many months while U.S. forces were in Iraq. The Bushies are are trying to minimize this, even as they claim it happened before U.S. occupiers were there, while contrary evidence is coming in. This story looks likely to continue for the week.

The other big story is Chief Justice Rehnquist's cancer operation, which reporters are saying is more serious than the official Court press release indicates. This is likely to boost turnout for both sides in the election, as people focus on the importance of the Court.

A story that hasn't gotten much play but is a significant indicator for the election is the sudden drop in U.S. consumer confidence. Our guess is that the tipping point is gasoline prices, so high that they are forcing changes in consumer behavior.

So far the blunders this week have all been GOPers. While bombing and killing continues in Iraq, Dick Cheney has called Iraq "a great success story." Feeding into the willful blindness image as if the Kerry team had written it for him.

President Bush said on terrorism, that a safe America is "up in the air." It was apparently an awkward attempt to create more fear of electing Kerry, but it came off as defeatist.

The BBC has uncovered a memo that implicates Florida GOPers in a conspiracy to suppress the black vote, with a "caging list" and attempts at intimidation. The same tactics are planned for Ohio, where several Bush operatives under investigation or even indictment in another state for election fraud are running the show.

V minus 8

The Big Dog is back.

Bill Clinton wowed a tremendous crowd in Philadelphia, estimated at between 80,000 and 100,000 . He'll be in Florida tonight and tomorrow, and has scheduled appearances for Kerry in New Mexico, Nevada and Arkansas.

In the latest state polls as we start the week, Arkansas has moved towards Kerry and is tied. Florida and Wisconsin are tied. Kerry has moved slightly ahead in New Mexico. The Zogby poll has Kerry ahead in Colorado but slightly behind in New Mexico.

Several newspaper endorsements in Florida went to Kerry, including the Orlando Sentinel, one of a number of newspapers that endorsed Bush last time but Kerry this time. The preponderance of editorial support in Florida is for Kerry, and some papers have declined to endorse at all, when they endorsed Bush last time.

Kerry is ahead in Ohio, has increased his lead in PA, has moved ahead again in Michigan, and has a solid lead in New Hamphshire.

The Columbus, Ohio paper endorsed Bush, reportedly pitting the editorial staff (for Kerry) against the publisher (a Bush supporter.) That same conflict was reported at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, with the result that their endorsement was postponed.

Bush is still slightly ahead in Iowa, Nevada and Minnesota (though Zogby has Kerry ahead in MN), but his lead has declined.

Nationally in the less important head to head polls, the usually GOPer CNN/Gallup has Bush ahead, as does the more reliable Zogby tracking poll, but the Rasmussen tracking poll puts Kerry ahead by 2 points among likely voters, tracking a steady decline in Bush's numbers last week. The Washington Post poll also has Kerry ahead, with 55% saying the Bush administration is leading the country in the wrong direction.

The Power of A Fresh Start

"I could see this mood in the nods of agreement in an airport lounge recently as a television news clip showed Kerry saying the country needs “a fresh start.” This could be the most powerful phrase in Kerry’s arsenal during the closing days."
Craig Crawford, Congressional Quarterly Columnist
predicting a Kerry victory

CQ.com

Faith

We never really could figure out what Christianity has to do with right wing Republican politics. In particular we can’t get our heads around the attacks on “bleeding-heart liberals.” Because the bleeding heart they are talking about is Jesus Christ’s. The heart of Jesus bleeds for the poor, the hungry, the sick and injured, the oppressed, the weakened old and the helpless children. Yet these are the people that the rabid right disdains, and the people who try to help them are the ones they insult with alarming venom, cynicism and hate.

In any case, we don’t believe religious faith should be an issue. Lots of Kerry supporters have strong religious faith. Kerry is apparently one of them. But Kerry talks about faith accompanied by works, which is an emphasis with a long history within the Catholic Church, that has led to many orders of monks and nuns being created, and many saints, as well as activists nearer to our time who may someday be proclaimed as saints. Like that bleeding heart liberal, Mother Theresa.

Of course, religion seems to enter in with issues like gay marriage and abortion. Yet people of faith, people who belong to organized Christian churches and may even be clergy, disagree on the politics of these issues. It’s true that in the history of the West some of the most violent disagreements, leading to individual deaths and even warfare, have been disagreements over doctrinal interpretations or political entanglements, within Christianity.

There is nothing that John Kerry would do that limits the ability of any person to make a moral choice based on their own conscience. There is nothing that John Kerry would do that prevents anyone from living their faith. This reflects a view about faith and the American political system. It also reflects a faith.

But when people talk about faith in this election, they can mean other things. There is the question of whether George Bush himself believes, as do some of his supporters, that he is an instrument of God to bring about the Apocalypse, the Rapture and the Last Judgment. Or if he believes he is a contemporary Crusader, at war with Islam.

There is the further question of whether people are relying too strongly on their faith in George Bush, either for religious reasons, or because they turned to him in a traumatic moment, and they have invested him with a faith that overrides perception of reality.

That question was raised in particular this past week by a study by the Center for Policy Attitudes and Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland. It was conducted in September and October of this year, well after the 9-11 report (finding no real connection between Saddam and 9-11 or al Qaeda) and several reports confirming that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq at the time that Bush started the war, nor were there any ongoing or even recent WMD programs.

The survey asked the same questions of people who identified themselves as Bush supporters and Kerry supporters. But the questions weren’t on their opinions; they were on facts.

Here’s what the Bush supporters said:
72% said that Iraq had WMDs
75% that Iraq had given substantial support to al Qaeda
55% that this was the conclusion of the 9-11 commission

Yet 58% said the U.S. should not have gone to war if Iraq had no WMD.

Only 31% realize that the rest of the world was largely against the Iraq invasion.
Just 9% believe that people in other countries favor Kerry in the election. In fact, a widely reported recent survey showed that Kerry is favored in 30 of 35 major countries, and in population total by 2 to 1.

But their faith in Bush went beyond what Bush had claimed was true and isn’t, or didn’t turn out to be. They believed Bush had positions on issues contrary to his actual ones.

69% said Bush supports the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
72% that Bush supports the treaty banning land mines.
57% that Bush supports the Kyoto treaty on global warming
74% that Bush favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements.

Bush is on the record as being against all these. There are a couple of possible conclusions. One is that faith in Bush alone holds sway, and since these voters obviously favor these things themselves (since being Bush supporters they wouldn’t say he had positions they didn’t agree with), they naturally think he feels the same way. Maybe because they just like him, and don’t follow the news, or maybe because they are going on faith.

Another is a little more nuanced: that faith in Bush predisposes them to accept the public relations image the Bush administration has tried hard to project; for example, by naming a law that allows more pollution, Clean Skies, or by holding a White House press conference to announce funds to fight AIDs in Africa that they immediately withdraw, but quietly.

This would also predispose them to believe the untruths and the vicious lies that the Bush administration tells regularly. This in some ways is the most understandable. Because every American would like to have faith in their leaders. It’s the only way that we as a country can solve our common problems, and work towards a better future. But having faith in lies does no one any good, except perhaps the liars. Yet even they have to answer for their souls.

There is also a more cynical possibility: that people don’t care if Bush is telling the truth, as long as he gives them a good feeling. If this is so, it’s not clear just what they have faith in. Unless they believe Bush is sent from God and whatever he does must be right. Otherwise, it becomes a question of whether they have faith in the idea of the truth. This is what scares people about Bush and his supporters: that they aren’t “reality-based.” They don’t care what happens to people in this world, because their faith is fixed on another world, and on the elect, the people who believe exactly what they believe.

People of faith should not let faith become identified with that point of view. We prefer keeping faith with our children and the generations to come, as well as keeping faith with the people we depend on every day, our fellow human beings, and the life of this planet that sustains us, and of which we are a small part. In the end we find religious zealotry and its associated politics repugnant not only for ignoring justice and charity, but for its ungodly pride, its lack of humility.

The Week That Will Be

The past week was a good one for the Kerry campaign. Kerry spoke in battleground states to huge crowds---30,000 in Minneapolis. He dominated the news with mostly positives, such as appearance of Christopher Reeve's wife and introduction by Caroline Kennedy. The news in Iraq, from the Pentagon and the CIA were all bad for Bush, as were headlines about further heights in oil prices and more problems with flu vaccine distribution.

The polls remained very close, though Kerry did consistently better in battleground states. But the numbers various pros and pundits point to are Bush's presidential approval rating, which remains below the magic 50%, and his poll numbers, which in most surveys don't get above the magic 50%; these are indicators for incumbents that historically point to losing.

Political junkies also note with some wonder that Bush has not campaigned much in Ohio, and that his plans for the final week are for a not very heavy schedule of appearances in mostly Iowa, New Mexico and Wisconsin. New Mexico is a close swing state, but it is also closest to Bush's Crawford TX ranch, where he is planning to spend two nights next week.

Going into the final week, Kerry looks strong in Ohio and PA, neither of which has Nader on the ballot. In Minnesota, the maverick former governor Jesse Ventura has endorsed Kerry.
In fact, Kerry looks so strong in virtually all the swing states that some pols have floated the idea that this election could be the reverse of 2000 in that Bush could win the popular vote and Kerry the electoral vote.

The week should start strong with Bill Clinton's first campaign appearance since his heart operation, in Philadelphia on Monday, an authentic news story that should get lots of coverage.

We get the sense that an undercurrent of movement began to flow for Kerry after the third debate, and it began to be perceptible this past week. It's an undercurrent of good crowds, of numbers within some of the more thorough surveys, of good news, of the look of the two campaigns, and of endorsements---not just newspapers, but individuals, including a growing number of Republicans. Plus the Pat Robertson flap last week which suggests to us (and to Kevin Phillips, we noted Friday) that there may be some dissatisfaction within the religious right with Bush.

The Republican efforts to suppress and intimidate voters not withstanding, there's also the sense that a huge turnout is expected on election day which will be very much for Kerry. If there is less that full enthusiasm in Bush's base, it could be decisive.

What will be interesting this week is the final round of polls, beginning Tuesday and ending next weekend. Right now you'd have to say that there appears to be reason that polls will show a movement towards Kerry, and that while such movement may signal a huge victory, a lack of movement either way, or even a slight uptick for Bush, won't be seen as definitive. Because of all those unknown voters out there, and the fact that the polls are more likely to find Bush voters than Kerry voters. So they may be measuring the top of Bush's numbers, but not Kerry's.

It's still possible there will be a final movement towards Bush, but why would there be? There's only a week left for the October Surprise to rear its ugly head. The Sinclair ploy largely didn't work, thanks to Internet activists. The news from Iraq continues to be bad. And several stories are brewing that are unfavorable for Bush, including a CIA report that might be leaked, new evidence about Bush's non-service in the National Guard and his drug use in those years.

While it's not time to take anything for granted, it is a time to feel positive. This will be a week to watch. While working to get out the vote on Tuesday.

The Final Threat

The instances of systematic attempts to take voting rights away from Democrats, specifically minorities and vulnerable populations (like the elderly) in swing states, are growing into the proportions of a national strategy.

Is this how Bush wants to win? The same tainted way he won the last time?

This is so widespread and intense that the news media can't handle it. They still try to balance the GOPers organized attempts involving party officials with isolated instances of minor frauds and infractions by individuals on the Democratic side. Read Paul Krugman's New York Times column for the scoop.


The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Voting and Counting

A Fresh Start

Now that the Kerry-Edwards campaign has adopted the slogan A FRESH START FOR AMERICA, we thought we'd reprise our columns on the subject. This is the more recent one:


Now it begins in earnest, and it appears the Karl Rove lies and distraction machine has had its effect. It again becomes possible that the administration that presided over the most disastrous four years since World War II with the most profoundly destructive implications for the next fifty years, may be rewarded with another term.

The Kerry-Edwards campaign is fighting back with a clarity not seen since the primaries. But we return to our belief that the theme that could mean victory is simply FOR A FRESH START.

To energize the base and to win swing voters and inspire non-voters, we need to inspire emotionally while we make sense on the facts. We need to be positive at the same time as we relentlessly expose the damage that Bush has done, that must not be rewarded with four more years.

There is power in words, and these words---A FRESH START-are optimistic at the same time as they imply Bush's failure and the need to repudiate his administration. In themselves they do not attack anyone personally. Whether the implication is "throw the bums out" or a more neutral "time for a change," these three words say it.

Yet these words are primarily oriented towards the future.

They express what this campaign is already saying, especially since the Willy Horton Writ Large GOP convention. They don't concentrate on blame, yet the action required is crystal clear: for A FRESH START, vote for Kerry-Edwards.

If you are convinced this is an effective combination of words to use, it may be up to you to use them---in your letters to the editor, or any other communications you have in support of saving the future by getting Bush out of power. It may have to be a slogan, an idea that percolates up from a few individuals and possibly gets noticed by the campaign. But even if it doesn't, even if it clicks with one voter enough to earn one vote, it will have made an important contribution. Especially in a race which may be extremely close.

And here is what we said this past summer; not only here but in memos to various politicos, postings on the Kerry site and correspondence to move on.org:

Kerry-Edwards: A FRESH START Second Unsolicited Advisory to the Kerry Campaign


Media parrotheads are calling for a soundbite, a slogan, a defining blurb to come out of the Dem convention; without it, they say, Kerry can't ride the media waves to the presidency. Maybe, maybe not. But we do have a very simple image to suggest that could help. And it just might help win the election. It's simply this: A FRESH START. Not just the concept, which is said and implied in many ways now, but the exact words. There are many ways to say it, but most of the formulations have been overused or are too abstract: time for a change, a new day, a new America, etc.

But this is better. Why? Words matter, and these are good words. A FRESH START is fresh, it's more concrete and action-oriented. It has emotional resonance, connotations that are both exciting and warm. Break it down: A: An indefinite article. It doesn't directly blame. It doesn't start an argument immediately by claiming too much (such as "this candidate is THE perfect answer to make everything better," which puts a lot of people off.) FRESH: has good associations, to fresh food, fresh air---something brand new, untainted. Fresh air is bracing, so it's exciting. Fresh bread is warm.

FRESH is POSITIVE, in its literal meaning and its emotional message. But it also distinguishes from something that is not fresh, that's old, that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Something that's fresh doesn't directly imply a change from something that's stale or decaying, but it is the desired alternative to something stale or decaying. It has associations of health, of flavor, that it will FEEL GOOD. START is an action word. Start your engines! It is exactly paired with FRESH in its music. The literal meaning of A FRESH START has everything to do with now and the future.

FRESH is immediate. START implies action that goes on into the future. But of course it won't work just because the words are good. The words have to be right: they have to convey the right message succinctly and dramatically. And A FRESH START does just that.

All the polls show that the American electorate is clearly heartsick over the Iraq prison scandals and the Bush handling of the Iraq war. They know the reasons given for the war weren't true, and they suspect they were lies. Bush's credibility is in shambles. The public has soured on his economic policies, his leadership, the total bill of goods he sold. They've seen enough of the corruption, the crude rule of the Haliburtons, the political extremism. They are ready to repudiate him and his administration. BUT he is still the president, and Americans are still in harms way in war zones. This presents difficulties for some voters. How can they get rid of Bush without appearing to be one of the haters, or even unpatriotic?

The answer is: A FRESH START. It repudiates the past without laying blame. It honors the tradition: when people in power make serious mistakes, it's time to give the job to someone else. Everybody understands that. It doesn't have to be personal. It just means A FRESH START.

This is a way for making Bush accountable without being negative. As such, it is event-proof. Bush deserves to be replaced for what has already happened on his watch. He doesn't deserve to be rewarded, and he can't be trusted with the job. It does several other things for the Kerry-Edwards ticket specifically. It allows them to be positive, which is especially important for Edwards.

A FRESH START is entirely future-oriented. It expresses a lot about the foreign policy objective of repairing our alliances and relations with other nations, as well as about domestic policies of new approaches to health care, education and the economy, and environmental and energy policies.

In all cases, A FRESH START means new people with new policies. This is especially potent on relations with other countries. Everyone understands that Bush can't repair the relationships he and his people so arrogantly destroyed. It will take somebody new to credibly say, let's forget about the recent past---let's start over. That's just common sense. But perhaps its strongest point is that it communicates new leadership even more than new policies. Republicans will argue about what Kerry supported or didn't support, and they will ask exactly what he will do differently in Iraq, and it will all get contentious and, for many, abstruse and over-complicated.

But you can't argue with the meaning of A FRESH START. It means a new president who is markedly different from the old president, and does not have the baggage of that past.

But of course it works equally well on issues (like health care) that are based on a new policy direction or different approaches. And for those predisposed to want a different direction, and those who want Kerry to bring a different direction, they will read all of that into A FRESH START. A FRESH START allows Kerry to be the candidate of change and hope. A FRESH START appeals to the Democratic base: those who want nothing more than to get rid of Bush. But it can also appeal to independents ready to jump who are troubled, if not appalled. To those who are almost ready to hold Bush accountable for mistakes, regardless of how they feel generally about his policies or his personality.

But the real key is that it can also appeal to OTHER INDEPENDENTS AND EVEN REPUBLICANS who need a nudge to use the secrecy of their ballot to vote for A FRESH START, for somebody new, without the emotional turmoil of admitting they were wrong to back Bush, or without the appearance of being disloyal to their party or ideology or religious congregation.

A FRESH START doesn't require anyone to admit that they fault Bush specifically. They might fault others in his administration. They may not fault anyone---they just want all this bad stuff to go away, and they're afraid that with Bush it could continue. They don't want to see the awful pictures and terrible headlines. They want it all to be over, but they don't want to appear disloyal to a president in wartime. A FRESH START is unthreatening language. It is optimistic, forward-looking, and very American.

A FRESH START works even for those who don't really believe that a change in administration will make much of a difference. But at least it will be a change, a chance that things will be better. Even when people are afraid to criticize, they can be persuaded by the sensible American idea that if things aren't going well, it's time to give somebody else a chance. That A FRESH START is a good idea, is something a great many people can agree on.

A FRESH START is a tag line to be used relentlessly until everyone knows it, until comedians are making jokes about it. But it is also a concept around which the candidate can build positions, and can show his personality. It turns the fact that many Americans are just starting to know Kerry into an advantage---he is new and therefore fresh, and imagery can reinforce this naturally by showing his family, his friends, his background---all new to the public.

When FDR was first elected, Will Rogers commented that if he had simply burned the White House down, the country would have cheered and said, at least he got a fire started. The electorate isn't that desperate yet. But there is a layer of something like desperation, and certainly deep dissatisfaction and disquiet, that is ready to be tapped. How do you do it without forcing anyone to feel guilty? How do you overcome the fear of change? Just a nudge might do it, just three words: A FRESH START.

Finally, we note that A FRESH START FOR AMERICA is not only the banner over the rally crowd or on the front of the lecturn, but Kerry and Edwards both used it in the debates, speaking of a fresh start on Iraq, and recently Kerry has applied it to a fresh start on health care.

Non-Plussed

It comes as no surprise that our society is overspecialized. But when it comes to understanding real life, and making informed decisions on political decisions which will affect many aspects of many lives--our jobs, health and well-being, whether children live or die, how our limited time on earth will be spent---we need more than a single limited purview.

Everyone is talking (everyone says) about Ron Suskind's article in the New York Times Magazine which basically says that Bush doesn't listen to facts, doesn't question or analyze, and often denies reality; instead he is guided by what he sometimes calls faith, sometimes calls instinct, sometimes intuition. Suskind further says that he draws certainty from doing this, and it is this sense of certainty that attract a great many people (apart from those who believe as a matter of fundamentalist faith that Bush was sent by God and so everything he does is divinely ordained.)

But the political pundits can't handle it. It's not in the policy purview. Charlie Rose interviewed Suskind, and often was debating him on the touchy subject of being guided by faith, or a Messanic impulse. He kept saying weren't other presidents guided by faith. He just didn't get that this president substitutes what he thinks is the guidance of faith for any other sort of decision-making process. And the absolutism of the conclusions are stunning. But this is too outside the usual political talk for Charlie to quite comprehend it.

Chris Matthews had the same problem, but with him it was worse, because when he "interviewed" Suskind, he obviously hadn't even read the article (just knew everybody was talking about it.) So he talked more than Suskind, throwing out his prejudices as to why Suskind was wrong. He just couldn't accomodate that kind of information.

Now we think even Suskind didn't go far enough in his analysis, but who could blame him? If he had taken the next logical step and thought about the psychology of this, he wouldn't even get on TV let alone be published in the Times Magazine. No, for that you'll have to go blogging.
Try this on for size:

BLUE VOICE

We aren't sure this is the correct analysis but it's pretty interesting.

A Different October Surprise

Sometimes it starts with just a peep here and there. A small story at the bottom of the page, an item one blog picks up. That's what's happening with the story of the CIA report, completed weeks ago, that "names names" in analyzing preparadness and response on 9-11. Why hasn't it been released? the stories ask. Why is it being held back until after the election? Shouldn't we see it now?

So the solitary cries become a chorus. Meanwhile an unnamed CIA guy makes the CNN ticker with the leak that the report is damaging to Bush. There's a war of unknown ferocity going on between the White House and the CIA. A number of damaging reports have already been leaked. Could this one be far behind?

Would it suddenly appear on the front page of a major newspaper, say ten days from now?
Maybe it's the CIA's October Surprise.

Score One for the Net

Sinclair television's plan to air a 42 minute anti-Kerry commercial disguised as a documentary has run up against the solid wall of the Internet.

Our activist brother discovered the power when he was able to post an alert on the Kerry.com website, having grabbed the company's address and phone numbers from its website, and a list of the TV stations it owned across America from a page posted by the Columbia Journalism Review. Two minutes of googling, five more of blogging, and a front was opened to attack Sinclair with protests, with calls to local stations, and especially calls to their advertisers.

The bigger and more powerful blogs like kos, atrios, marshall's talking points memo, mahablog and others were on the case within hours. Most detailed lists of stations and some with their advertisers appeared. People reading these sites and blogs who lived in the Sinclair cities started calling. Others got involved, including members of Congress and some activists with money.

Advertisers starting pulling out: the number is now up to at least 80. Local stations were weeping, because this is their revenue stream. Law suits started. Sharesholders started to protest. The news director of the Sinclair Washington station came out publicly against the order to show the anti-Kerry ad, and he was fired.

But all of this made Wall Street nervous. Sinclair stock began to tank. Sinclair losts an estimated $100 million in revenue.

Now Sinclair has announced it is not airing this "documentary," but its own news program examining the influence of documentaries, blah blah. No one exactly believes them, so the pressure is still on. But to avoid a lawsuit by Media Matters, they have stated flatly that they won't air it. Meanwhile, the folks who made the award-winning "Going Up River" docu on Kerry, mostly positive, have partnered with one of those money guys, and offered to buy time to show it on all Sinclair stations.

This has happened in the space of about ten days.

Score one for the Internet.

The Surge?


In five of the six electoral vote tallies surveyed by T. Goddard's Political Wire, Kerry is leading. In four of the five, he has more than enough electoral votes for victory.

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

New state polls show Kerry leading in the battlegrounds of PA, Ohio, Oregon, New Hampshire and--yes!---Florida. Minnesota is tied.

Meanwhile Bush's lead has shrunk to just 3 points in Arkansas (5 in another poll) and another state seems to be in play: North Carolina, where Bush's lead is just 3 points.

Meanwhile, the national head to head polls are trending towards a tighter race, meaning that Kerry is showing gains.

Ups and downs

Reasons for optimism: Zogby poll shows Kerry closing on Bush's recent lead, now tied; battleground states continue to trend towards Kerry; Bush's approval numbers still hover around 50% (in CBS/NYT poll it's at 44%) and no recent president has been re-elected with less than 50% approval, because late deciding voters trend towards the challenger. There is little or no good news for Bush, Kerry did well in the debates and so innoculated himself against charges of flip-flopping. There are untold numbers of new voters and members of various minority groups likely to vote for Kerry; new registrations especially in swing states trend towards Democrats. Kerry's core voters are now strongly committed to voting, and there are thousands of activists committed to getting out that vote.

Reasons for pessimism: Bush is ahead by an average of five points in likely voter polls, despite everything: losing all three debates, the bad news, the horrendous record. Undecideds may not break towards the challenger in what is perceived to be a time of war, when people may feel threatened. GOPers may have successfully suppressed Democratic and minority registration in key states (i.e. vote fraud) enough to almost nullify gains. Karl Rove, the evil genius, may have successfully warped the national consciousness into submission.

The conclusion is that the race is still close and the outcome is still uncertain, two weeks before the election. But what depresses some Kerry advocates---and it does seem that some are sinking back into the September depression---is the belief that the evidence against Bush is so extreme that in a sane country Kerry would be WAY WAY ahead in the polls, and therefore, not only do we face the possibility of an utterly ruinous second Bush term, but his election (or reappointment) would be the final and most terrifying evidence that America is functionally insane.

Endorsements and Polls


Kerry is beating Bush in newspaper endorsements in Florida 22-3. Tomorrow (Monday) early voting begins in Florida. Kerry is ahead in that state in some polls, a touch behind in others.

Newspapers in other battleground states (such as Dayton, Ohio) endorsed Kerry today. The latest Zogby poll shows Kerry with a ten point lead in battleground states.

However, the new CNN/Gallup Poll shows Bush opening an eight point lead among likely voters. This poll is meaningful only in how CNN and other media sheep choose to play it in terms of the emphasis of their coverage. Among registered voters in this poll, the change from last week is insignificant, and the race is still essentially tied.

Because of the varied ways in which these polls measure "likely" voters, and because new voters are by definition not likely ones in these polls, and because more questions are arising about the accuracy of polls especially due to the prevalence of cell phones (many lower income families use only cell phones) which are not accessible to pollsters, expert observers are counselling that the registered voter poll is more likely to be indicative. A poli sci prof that one of the blogs we read quotes (they go by in a blur) counsels further that if Bush is not ahead by four points, he loses.

The internals in these polls continue to look bad for Bush, good for Kerry; the battleground states polls also continue to look good for Kerry. The bad effect of the Bush-ahead polls is to suppress enthusiasm and therefore turnout. Can't let that happen.

The New York Times and Washington Post are among the newspapers endorsing John Kerry this weekend. So far the cumulative circulation of the papers endorsing Kerry is five times greater than for Bush.

The NYTimes Magazine also carries one of the most depressing stories of our lifetime, a profile of GW Bush by Ron Suskind, author of the Paul O'Neill book. Suskind a very smart, energetic and thorough researcher with keen ear for the telling anecdote. The Bush he portrays is truly frightening. Blissfully detached from reality, he makes decisions according to what he calls his intuition or his faith. While intuition and faith have their functions in mental, emotional and spiritual life, it's clear that Bush's pipeline to God is mostly the voice of his shadow-dominated unconscious. But according to Suskind it gives him his most attractive quality: his certainty.

This is so scary because Bush could win reelection. Because things are FALLING APART BEFORE OUR EYES and Bush is still even or ahead in the polls. Things are falling apart so totally in every sphere that at best it's going to be a struggle to see things through, even if Kerry is elected. Even if a Democratic Congress is elected with him. But without that, without at least Kerry in the White House, we face truly apocalyptic times. And maybe that's just fine with GWB.

The Newsweek poll is another that shows Bush slightly ahead, this one outside the margin of error, particularly with likely voters. In a different poll--maybe Marist, we forget--- of over 1000 voters, Kerry was well ahead, both in raw numbers and among registered voters, but even or slightly behind within the margin of error when this same group was whittled down to people who said they were likely to vote.

It's getting hot and heavy out there on the trail, and hot buttons are being pushed on both sides. Kerry has mentioned to a reporter that if Bush is re elected, the revival of the draft is likely. If this becomes part of his campaign speeches and commercials, it could move the poll numbers.

But the hope mostly is that somehow all the efforts of people to get out the antiBush and proKerry vote will win the election, and give America a fresh start---and all of us a fighting chance.

A FRESH START FOR AMERICA

So says the sign on the podium at John Kerry's speeches today. It could be the campaign theme for the home stretch.

To reFRESH your memory as to why this is a good slogan, check our archives: July 22, 2004.
(We actually sent the substance of this post weeks earlier to our one national Democratic Insider---who may or may not read our email any more---as well as various operatives of the Kerry campaign. Nobody ever replied so we'll settle for some psychic inspiration credit.)

It's Not Over

The major sentiment among political observers is that John Kerry has momentum and George Bush is slipping towards defeat---an opinion shared by none other than GOPer pollster Frank Luntz.

But so far this is not reflected in polls. There is one poll showing Kerry with a one point lead, a couple showing a dead heat, and 3 tracking polls showing an unaccountably bounce for Bush. There seems to be no reason for this, but one of them is the usually reliable Zogby poll. So it isn't over by a longshot, and turning out unpolled voters becomes even more crucial.

The most recent polls in the midwestern battleground states however do show Kerry gains. And there is one small surprise---a tightened race in Arkansas. Tight enough perhaps that a visit by Bill Clinton could make the difference.

The New York Times suggests that Nader could be the destructive factor many feared he might be, especially in these battleground states. However, his running mate in the past two election cycles, Native American activist Winona LaDuke, has come out publicly for Kerry. This may help motivate poll workers on the reservations to get the vote out for Kerry on election day.

Debate Numbers

The first audience estimates are in: over 51 million viewers, a larger audience than the second debate, despite two baseball playoff games at the same time.

Our assumption is that this means voters were still looking at John Kerry, and the polls indicate that they continue to like what they saw. This should translate to independents and undecided going to Kerry, and those leaning towards Kerry solidifying their vote for him.

If you assume that watching baseball is still a mostly male avocation, then the audience for last night's debate must have included an awful lot of women. Kerry made specific connection with women's issues and with issues of family economics, and he continued to show as well as tell, the strength that some pollsters saw as affecting women who were moving towards Bush before the debates began. And that poll that showed college educated women giving Kerry the debate by 20 points, also figures into the calculation.

updates

Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globe, who before the third debate opined that Bush had an easier job, saw the debate as a clear Kerry win and Bush loss.

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Bush's dodge and duck

As for the "mystery," we note that in the past hour or so, US forces began a significant attack on Fallaja.
And also in Iraq, the Green Zone in Baghdad was penetrated, with two Americans killed (Defense Department people).

Fraud and a High Level Mystery


The state of Oregon is beginning an official investigation into the Republican National Committee-backed company accused of destroying Democratic voter registration forms in that state, the same outfit as in Nevada.

It is interesting that this fraud was possible because of the poor job situation, and many people needing the few bucks they'd earn from this temporary job. Yet the allegations consistently are that they were ordered to register only Republicans by management, and it was management that destroyed valid registrations. Yet it was these poorly paid people who blew the whistle.

OregonLive.com: NewsFlash - State opens investigation into voter fraud allegations


The Presidential Mystery

Our hearing-impaired brother kept insisting last night that after the debate, when President Bush and Senator Kerry met in the center of the stage, that Bush asked Kerry if he could contact him later. He clearly saw Bush then ask "where will you be?"

Not that we don't trust our own brother, but the Atrios blog links to an observer who describes himself as deaf, and he verified that he lip-read Bush's words, asking if he could contact Kerry, and then asking, where will you be (later).

What was so urgent that Bush himself would ask for this contact? Normally, we assume, this already extraordinary request would be made by one top level aide to her or his counterpart.

Both candidates resumed their normal campaign schedules today.

We suspect that something's up, something involving "national security" that rival candidates are traditionally informed of in advance. The October Surprise?

It will be fascinating to see if events in the next few days bear this out, or if the mainstream media picks up on this story. What did Bush need to talk to Kerry about?

Here's an interesting take on the debate from London:

ThisisLondon

More good news

In the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania, a judge has just ordered that Ralph Nader be taken off the ballot, because too many signatures on his petition were forgeries. Although there are some indications that the Bushies are moving their resources out of the state, the polls are still showing a close race. The 1% Nader might have taken from Kerry could be significant.

More Debate Reaction

Gallup snap poll has Kerry the debate winner. Stories in the morning NY Times and AP report indicate Bush contining to spiral down. The Democracy Poll (a Democrat-affiliated outfit but objective numbers) of 1,030 likely voters showed the biggest movement towards Kerry of any of the post-debate polls. The group was tied at 48-48 % before the debate; afterwards it was going for Kerry 50-47% . Other interesting numbers: Kerry won debate by 5 points among the whole group, but by 6 points among Independents and 9 points in battleground states. Among college educated women: 20 points.

Three for Three

The post-debate polls are unanimous in proclaiming John Kerry the winner of the third debate. Although some of the mighty media stars called it a draw (as per prediction), several lesser analysts (the kind who actually talk with voters) gave it to Kerry.

The CBS poll of a selected group of uncommitted voters was the most revealing. They gave the debate to Kerry 39% to 25%, with 36% rating it a tie. But some other numbers were very interesting. Before the debate, 29% said that Kerry took clear positions on issues. After the debate, it was 60%. And 70% said they had learned something from the debate.

Kerry continued to look presidential. He was calm, methodical and focused. He made eye contact with the camera often, especially when he was making his most forceful points. Once again he used revealing statistics referring to Arizona, where the debate was held. He did two things: he shored up the general impression of him as presidential and as commander-in-chief; and he carefully calibrated his answers to appeal to many specific groups in his base, as well as to voters in the battleground states.

So he was much stronger in saying he supported Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose; he talked about affirmative action and the legacy of racism; he talked with great understanding about the lives of homosexuals in this society. In his answer about religion, he even mentioned receiving a Native American blessing.

It was a tactical performance rather than a great performance. He didn't leave the viewer with memorable lines. Unless we're remembering incorrectly, Latino issues weren't mentioned except for immigration. Other important domestic issues that didn't even come up significantly were the environment, broad energy policy, and surprisingly, stem cell research. All of those are Kerry strong points, and together they say a lot about what will make a Kerry administration different.

But Kerry did successfully deflect the Bushie issues. He had a much better answer on assault weapons and gun control, deftly including a little anecdote that involved him hunting with a police officer out west. Take that, Mr. lawn order outside cleaning the brush.

Bloggers are emphasizing Bush's smirks, his inappropriate chuckles, bad jokes, and even foaming at the mouth. It was clear that Bush wanted most of all to be done with these debates. But we think he had some good moments, though it's not clear how he helped himself, even with his base. But some of that depends on whether the "liberal senator from Massachusetts" is still as powerful a mantra as it once was.

Like Cheney, Bush deflected questions about jobs with answers about education. When he was asked about racism, he talked about education. He began to leave the impression that people are unemployed and/or black because they are uneducated, possibly stupid.

Essentially, there was nothing surprising about this debate, except that it was surprising how little it resembled what most commentators thought it would or should be. Bush did not liberal-bash all night. Kerry did not go at Bush with devastating lines in a frontal attack.

Perhaps Kerry was looking ahead, too. It will be interesting to see how his demeanor of calm confidence played with voters. If the CBS group is any indication, he continued to make progress in his mission.

Rampant Republican Fraud

For an update on the rapidly spreading scandal of voter registration scams see the latest Kos:

Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.

The outfit in Nevada operated in many other states, where allegations have also been made of destroying Democratic registrations. And the company has been tied directly to the Republican National Committee.
If the establishment press and major media get on this story, it could be a major scandal in this election.

More Pre-Debate

Bob Sheiffer of CBS, moderator of the upcoming third debate, was interviewed on Fox Tuesday. He indicated he'll be asking questions on immigration, the "culture issues" and safety from terror, at least two of which should make Bush happy. If only because of oil and gasoline prices, he'll have to ask about energy policy. But it doesn't look like the evening will be spent solely on the big issues of health care, jobs and the deficit.

When it gets to terrorism and the Patriot Act, maybe Kerry should steal a line from Jon Stewart and say, they failed to get Osama bin Laden, but they did get the guy who wrote "Peace Train."

The CV on campaign tactics is that the Bushies are concentrating on their base, while the Kerry campaign is going after undecideds. One pundit says this makes Kerry's debate tasks much harder, because all Bush has to do is repeat liberal, tax and spend, and his stupid "he can run but he can't hide"line, while Kerry has to make a quick case against Bush and pivot to his vision for the future.

We're looking forward to Bush uttering that 'he can run but he can't hide' line and having Kerry look at him and say, you see anybody running? Or trying to hide? I'm standing right here, telling America the truth.

The reason for this different tactical approach is not often discussed however. Could it be that Kerry is confident of his base, knows that in reaching out to other voters he increases the confidence of his base that he can win, and so does both jobs simultaneously? While Bush is just trying to make sure he pushes the right buttons of the people he has no respect for, but counts on for his power?

Within what the pollsters can measure (and it's not clear how much they are missing---maybe a lot) there appears to be but 5% undecided, but maybe 20% who are still persuadable. A poll in PA shows that while supporters of both candidates are locked in, those favoring Kerry are locked in tighter. Because of Kerry's success in the debates so far, it's likely that more persuadables are leaning towards Bush, though clearly the Sinclair people and the Rove ravers are counting on the Swift Boat Liars and things like a whispering campaign against Teresa H. Kerry (which Molly Ivins predicts) to peel away the persuadables leaning towards Kerry. But Kerry's last big chance to get at those persuadables is the third debate. After that, it's one voter at a time, luck and the news.

This is going to be really nerve-wracking because it won't be until the vote count starts that there's any real indication of how powerful this "hidden" Kerry vote is going to be. (The first time voters, new registrations, Latinos, Native Americans, pushed to the edge families of reservists and guard, single low income working women, pissed off Arab-Americans and Cuban Americans, and righteously angry black voters in Florida.) Some people think it's going to be very powerful.

Kerry and Edwards are certainly right that the Bushies will say or do absolutely anything to win. In Florida, unions and others have filed suit against GOPer state government officials for denying registration to thousands on technicalities, and failing to notify them that they are not really registered, as required by law. Now there's a scandal emerging in Nevada, where a former employee claims that a private outfit called Voter Outreach of America, aka America Votes, which purported to register voters at malls and so on, has been throwing out Democratic party registrations, because the company's mission is to register only Republicans. This employee rescued some of the forms discarded, and when they were checked out, those people who thought they'd registered were not on the rolls. This is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

But it is worth saying to anyone reading this who registered for the first time this year, or changed their registration: be sure to call your local election officials and verify that you are indeed on the registration rolls, so you don't get a nasty surprise on election day.

If you did fill out registration form and you aren't on the rolls, and the date for registration in your state has passed, contact the local Democratic party, and they will likely go to court on your behalf.

UPDATE on the Sinclair airing of the anti-Kerry propaganda: the blogosphere has struck another blow, as advertisers for local Sinclair stations are getting hundreds of phone calls. There are unverified reports of advertisers pulling their ads because of it.

Meanwhile, the pr guy for Sinclair has been calling the attempts to stifle the voices of those aggrieved veterans (who presumably didn't get enough air time with the Swift Boat Liars ads) the equivalent of "Holocaust deniers." And the whole business has drawn attention to what corporate power can really mean now that the Bush FCC has allowed media giants to own more and more TV stations and newspapers. Sinclair is trying to buy more, and therefore has a vested interest in supporting Bush. Which is clearly what they are doing, with a film made by the guy at the Washington Times who published a book whitewashing the Rev. Moon, after getting Moon's approval of the manuscript. Hey, not even Gary Trudeau could make this stuff up.

Debate Prep 3

The third debate will be the last time that either candidate has a substantial audience of voters. The last three weeks of the campaign will be dominated by TV ads and on-the-ground campaigning in the battleground states, but nationally by news stories and images. It is a dangerous period for John Kerry because of the Bush campaign of shameless lies, which he will not have the opportunity to answer that the debates afford him.

Most polls now indicate that Kerry won the second debate as well as the first, but this is no time for complacency. Kerry has to make a final and lasting impression, powerful enough to overcome the relentless distortions of an incumbent president whose approval rating is so low that he can't talk about his accomplishments and must concentrate on bashing his opponent with tried and true tags of tax and spend liberal.

Kerry has to be crisp direct and powerful. Some of his answers in the second debate that talking heads have criticized, were good responses in the situation---he connected with the citizens asking the question. But in the same format as the first debate, Kerry has to be laser-sharp.

What Kerry can do in this debate is take his argument to the final step. He has established that Bush has made bad decisions leading to catastrophes abroad and at home, affecting voters and their families. Now he must hammer away with the idea that Bush will continue to make bad decisions in a second term, because he won't change. He won't admit mistakes, he defends all these wrong choices.

Not only does this close the basic argument-Bush is out of touch, makes wrong choices, is stubborn, is in denial, etc.---but it speaks directly to a major Bush vulnerability. Even his supporters are among the large majority who tell pollsters that Bush must make major changes in a second term. They're dreaming. Kerry should point to Bush and say, he's not going to change. It's going to be four more years of the same. He's telling you that himself.

He can list Bush's disasters and ask, do we really want four more years of this?

Kerry can also inoculate himself a bit against the last 3 weeks of attacks by "complimenting" the Bush campaign on its shameless use of distortion and hot-button issues, and saying: they are very good at public relations. They are very bad at telling the truth. They are very good at selling. They are very bad at delivering what they promise. They're good at making slick commercials, and very bad at making good decisions for America.

Kerry has to be prepared on taxes, health care plans and costs, and there's little doubt that he'll bring up stem cell research to honor his friend, Christopher Reeve. On economic issues, he's got a succinct briefing courtesy of Paul Krugman's new column.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Checking the Facts, in Advance

The media storyline is to tantalize viewers with the prospect of "a knockout punch" in the third debate. The virtue of having given the "Bush comeback" storyline to the second debate is that it isn't available for the third. But expectations for Kerry in this debate will be very high, and so we can expect the predominately conservative pundits to say he didn't measure up to them. Our guess is that the media will say that the third debate was a draw, because that's the storyline that generates interest in following the rest of the campaign. In the conscious or unconscious struggle for audience, the media won't say the race is over. People might stop watching. They are more likely to suggest a momentum shift in Bush's direction because it's a better story than momentum continuing for Kerry.

The second debate was watched by some 47 million---not the more than 60 million that saw the first one, but a 25% larger audience than watched the second debate in 2000. The audience for the third debate may say a lot about how decided or undecided the electorate still is. Fewer viewers in a year of high interest would indicate more people have made up their minds. Friday's audience may have been suppressed by the fact that it was Friday. The audience for this debate should be higher, if interest remains strong.

This is not a time for Kerry complacency. He may have won the second debate, but it clearly energized Bush. He's much sharper and more engaged on the campaign trail. The national polls and the battleground state polls so far have not moved decisively against him. His job approval is 47%, and most re-elected incumbents had job approval of over 60%. So he's vulnerable, but he's definitely not toast yet. If Bush can control himself in the third debate and not let Kerry get to him, if he appears more presidential than he did in the first two debates (and he was better in the domestic issues second half of the second debate), he's going to come out of this with more confidence.

At the same time, Kerry is also getting better on the trail, with sharper lines in his speeches, and better delivery of them. Some of those injected into this debate can provide new soundbites that probably more people will see than will see the debate itself.

Finally, this debate is Kerry's opportunity to emphasize the "fresh start" theme that can reach voters who are troubled by Bush but not comfortable with "rejecting" the President in a time of war. A fresh start is a positive, a vote for something that still implies a change. It's a line that has begun to appear in Kerry and DNC ads as well as in Kerry and Edwards speeches. If it becomes a major theme in ads for the rest of the campaign, it should be a major part of Kerry's summation at the debate.

Is this It?

Is this it? Is this the October Surprise Karl Rove has been promising?
The arch-conservative and Bush-backer owner of the Sinclair Broadcasting Group has apparently ordered its more than sixty TV stations to air an anti-Kerry "documentary" in the tradition of the Swift Boat Liars commercials, a few days before the election.

This is unprecedented in American television history. According to law, the airwaves that carry TV signals belong to the public, and the government, acting on the people's behalf, gives the rights to use these airways to commercial concerns that provide a service that benefits the public. For many years, the Fairness Doctrine decreed, among other things, that major political candidates be given "equal time." But the Fairness Doctrine is defunct (right wing talk radio wouldn't be possible otherwise) though there are other rules, and network news operations tend to be more and more careful about being even-handed in coverage as Election Day approaches.

As Aaron Brown or someone on his CNN program put it, it is as if CBS decided to air "Fahrenheit 9-11" the week before the election. The Sinclair move is causing consternation and furious activity. The Democratic Party is going to the Federal Elections Comission, claiming this amounts to giving the Bush campaign an extended campaign commercial for free. Various Kerry supporters are quickly organizing protest actions, ranging from phone calls and mail to Sinclair, its local stations and their advertisers, to investigating which stations have their license renewals coming up, so their licenses can be challenged.

Many of Sinclair's stations are in battleground states, including Florida (Tampa, Tallahassee), Pennsylvania (two stations in Pittsburgh), Ohio (Dayton and two stations in Columbus), Missouri, Wisconsin and Iowa.

The Sinclair move, as boldly anti-democratic as it is, puts some free speech advocates in a painful position. While some state that Sinclair has the legal right to do this, others are not so sure they do. But we believe the vulnerable point is at the local station level, and that pressure on individual stations, either directly or through advertisers, could inspire some defiance and defection, and then the whole thing might unravel.

There is also the risk that protests could call more attention to the program, but that is a risk that has to be taken, because the content is so inflammatory: several Vietnam veterans and former POWs claim that Kerry's antiwar activity was used against them while they were prisoners, a claim denied by other Vietnam vets and former POWs not interviewed in this "documentary." Besides lies, it uses the same sort of distortions featured in the Swift Boat ads.

Whether or not this happens, or has much effect on an issue that may have had all the impact it is going to, this is exactly the kind of campaign we can expect the Bushies to wage, from the end of the third debate until election day: Lies and distortions meant to have powerful emotional effects. The rabid right is without ethics or morals of any kind in politics. It's all about power. The most pitiful part of it is that many of the people who support these tactics, and even many who dream them up and implement them, are being exploited with the same cynicism, and they will be left behind with the rest of the masses. The Bushes of the world will stay rich and privileged, with their sense of entitlement intact. They have no more respect for the people serving them than they have for the poor that their servants mock. Nor will their minions reap the big rewards. They will be kept around as long as their masters need them and they function well. But there will always be hungry new servants who will work for less. Eventually they will be eaten alive by their more ambitious colleagues, who in turn will fall.