Bush supporters here are providing their input for "who do you think won the debate?" by not showing up to post here.

I suspect that even Karl Rove thinks that there is a disturbance in the force. I watched him spinning last night, he mentioned that Iraq is "hard work", which indicates to me that he provided that line to Bush before the debate. Bush used it 11 times, I guess he was clinging to it as a security blanket when things were not going well.

Time for another prediction:

The pundits are giving this one to Kerry. The bloggers are giving this one to Kerry.

I am not so sure that the American people won't give it to Bush. I am seeing sound bites from stupid people going on about how forceful Bush was, and how he will not waver. Since there are a lot of stupid people out there, maybe they will simply identify with Bush, I dunno.

I'm with Stupid

Just want to say I'm one of those millions of fat, lazy, ignorant, SUV-drivin' Americans that knows you're supposed to say "nucular" not nuclear. That's why I can relate to Bushie. He doesn't intimidate me with that intelligent talk like Kerry. Deep inside, I believe that the ultimate American Dream is to become the trust-fund Daddy's Boy. C'mon people, we all relate to the kegger-lovin' frat guy better than the earnest A student (i.e., geeks like Kerry) As long as some poor black, hispanic, & white-trash suckers are putting their lives on the line defending my freedoms out there in those weird foreign countries I don't understand (much less pronounce), it's all good ;-)

And if you don't agree with me, get the hell out of MY COUNTRY. You're un-American and can't admit that we're betterer than everybody else!!

But seriously folks, I was laughing so hard when some CNN pundit was explaining that people like Bush more because they can relate to him betterer, oops I mean better, than Kerry. I personally believe that in democratic societies like ours, the people get the leaders they deserve about 75% of the time (which is a pretty good stat if you think about it). So if you're concerned about the economic and foreign-policy quagmires we currently find ourselves stuck in, don't blame the leadership, blame your next door neighbor!!

"I see stupid people. They're all around me"

As Deadlines Hit, Rolls of Voters Show Big Surge

www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/politics/campaign/04vote.html?oref=login&oref=login&hp

This make you happy Explorer?

Also you guys might want to check out the top stories at
Air America Radio.

www.airamericaradio.com/

I couldn't read the NY Times article, but any data on new voter registration is a good thing.

I am watching CNN now, and they have a report on new voters, claiming record number of new voters in key states: Ohio is 500,000, Florida has 600,000 since January 1. No context, though, no clue how this compares with 2000.

They have some "Rock the Voter" person on, making all sorts of claims about registration levels. However, this group always claims this in every election. This time around, they claim they have already made their annual registration goals.

Note to all: earlier reports claimed that new voters are overwhelmingly Democrat.

By Beachman on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 06:30 am: Edit

Yeah.... someone outside CBS conned them....how about the Democratic National Committe or a Kerry aide! Last week Terry MCculiffe the head of the Democratic Committe and Senator Tom Harkin (D) Iowa seem to be very familar with this story.

If these were reverse and if FOXNEWS would have pulled this stunt with forged documents about Kerry....you would see the Democratics demanding
not only the the newscaster resign....but that Congress should and FOX shouold lose their license.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Actually, FOX News put up some false document last week, they were alerted to it, and took it down. The Democrats made no complaint, and life went on.

Bottom line: Beachman, is it possible for you to be more wrong? Do you have any predictions for the Sunday NFL games, so we can bet the opposite?

Explorer should leave Beachman alone and not deprive him of his warped fantasy life.

======= begin Beachman disinformation =========

By Beachman on Sunday, September 12, 2004 - 07:41 pm: Edit

By the way.....

Down here in Florida since the Hurricanes have been bearing down on us.... John Kerry has not been seen or heard from.....I guess he has conceded Florida to Bush.

================= end ========================

You know, I have no idea what Beachman's motives were. You would think that he would have more respect for the rest of us than to post misinformation or just plain stupid stuff. Everyone knew a few weeks ago that Kerry was avoiding Florida because of the hurricane damage.

Exployer-

I know what I am talking about with the Hurricanes!

I was was hit pretty hard....my personal residence is beachfront on the barrier island and I have several investment properties many which sustained substanial damage!

The funny thing is the the Florida senators Graham And Nelson had not been seen or heard from much for the 4 Hurricanes which has hit Florida! Nelson finally made it down after the last Hurricane!

Oh yeah....the day of the debate.... Kerry spent the day getting his finernails manicured....that is the truth....and working on his fake tan....and rumors of getting more botox injections.

On the other hand...Bush was out surveying the damage and visting with Hurricane victims comforting and guarenteeing help!

Maybe that is why Bush didn't look so fresh in the debate....some of damage is just unbelievable and two Hurricanes coming on shore within 3 miles of each other in 3 weeks has been compare to like winning the lottery 12 months in a row!

I am telling you Kerry or Edwards have made no effort to visit and show sinecerly their concern of these disasters. Their appearances in Florida have strickly been for events that reach out only for their political base here!

Florida will vote for Bush In November!

Yeah. And if they had been there you would be complaining about how they are distracting from the cleanup operation, using a disaster for political gain, providing fake comfort when all they want to do is win votes, how they are in the way and how people were inconvenienced by their visit given the security needs and other organizational considerations and how this was completely and totally an insensitive move by them, etc, etc, etc…

Either way they lose.

Beachie says:

"Their appearances in Florida have strickly been for events that reach out only for their political base here! "

So, is Bush going to any events where there aren't supporters these days? Ever hear of the loyalty oath that events attendees are required to sign? Cheney rarely goes out at all, Edwards is out in middle America, speaking at large rallies of undecided voters.

Just so everyone knows that I am not just picking on Beachbum:

+++++ begin dumb post +++++++++++++++

By Roadglide on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 - 10:53 pm: Edit

Bad news for Kerry supporters:

National presidential preference polls

{list of obsolete polls deleted}

++++++++++++ end dumb post++++++++++


Guys, polls in September don't make an election. The only polls that will be close to accurate are those in November, or very late October. Even if Kerry is 5 points behind, he still could make it much closer due to intangible factors.

At any rate, I was marveling at the enormously bad timing of Roadglide's post, I mean mistiming such a post so badly couldn't be worse, unless you tried.

However, we should really stick to the issues. The problem with the Bush supporters' posts here is not that they are wrong, although they often are, but rather that they don't post about what they SHOULD post about, the Bush record, and the Bush plan for the future. Instead, they post about worthless stuff, whether Kerry had Botox, the Swift Boat stuff, CBS News.

If Bush is such a great president, how come his guys don't talk about him?

It has been interesting to watch the evolution of the justification for the Iraq war.

First it was:

1. Sadam is an immediate threat to the US. We’ll be attacked tomorrow!
2. Sadam has banned weapons.
3. Iraq and Al-Qaeda are in bed together.

Turns out:

1. Sadam had no capability to be a threat to the US.
2. Sadam had no banned weapons.
3. 9-11 report says no connection between Iraq and Al-Qaida.

Now the argument from Bush today goes (some might even call it a flip flop):

1. Sadam had “knowledge” and could or might have passed that knowledge on to terrorists so he had to be stopped.

Interesting evolution we had seen on Bush's part. Seems to me that Bush is the one with his finger in the wind seeing which way it is blowing. Of course, now the facts have come out and totally obliterated all his justifications for the war, it is understandable.

I must say things were looking pretty grim for Kerry at that time. He really turned things around with that first debate. I'll still stand by my post right after Roadglide's though that I am 90% sure Bush will win re-election. Taking an honest look at the electoral map it still does not look good for Kerry. It is a tough map for him to win. But I guess we'll see.

I also still stand by my prediction that Bush will do much better or at least tread water in the next two debates and they won't quite have the impact the first one had. The pressure is on Kerry now, but he needs another first debate performance and Bush blowup to make up any more ground, which I don't think will happen.
But again, I guess we'll see.

Today's AP poll has Kerry up 50-46, and the CNN/Gallup has it all tied at 49 apiece.

How did Kerry make up so much ground on the CNN poll from two weeks ago (54-40 Bush)? Because, he wasn't really behind by 14 points two weeks ago!

Colorado is tied, New Mexico and Wisconsin show Bush up by 3-4 points but well within margin of error.

Record new voters in many, many states this year. A large majority of these new voters are Democrats. Do the math, guys, do the math.

BTW, expanding on that comment from Bush today about having weapons knowledge and passing that on to terrorists as justification for the war in Iraq (which was a big change from the original justifications we all heard)…

1. Iran is constantly listed by the state department as the number one state sponsor of terrorism. They are now actively developing a nuclear program. Shouldn't THEY be a higher priority given Bush's comment today about passing weapons knowledge on to terrorists??

2. North Korea. On Bush's watch they have broken UN seals on the Yongbyon plant, kicked out UN inspectors and reprocessed over 8000 spent fuel rods capable of producing another 6-8 nuclear weapons. This was in reaction to Bush’s “axis of evil” North Korea comment and his war in Iraq.

It is believed they already have one or two nuclear weapons. Bush has stood by and done absolutely nothing, or close to nothing during this time and seems completely content to let North Korea do its thing. Six ways talks have completely stalled and it was not like any progress was being made to begin with. The US is relying on China to influence North Korea, something China seems completely unwilling to do at the moment. The US is reducing its troops in South Korea and has already re-deployed some to Iraq. The others are being moved away from the de-militarized zone and Seoul to a "safer" location south of Seoul. (Although there are other issues involved in that as well like the big base the US has in the middle of prime real-estate in Seoul which has always been a sore point with the Koreans.)

North Korea is the number one proliferator of missile technology in the world. If passing on nuclear weapons or WMD to terrorists is the number one concern for the justification of the war in Iraq (since that serves his purpose now and sounds better since all his other justifications have been proven inaccurate), why isn’t Bush doing something more about North Korea and Iran?

Gore won Wisconsin and New Mexico in 2000. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and even Iowa are all close. If Kerry loses one of those, he loses the election and they are all too close to call.

He also needs to pick up Ohio or Florida to win. I say Ohio he needs to pickup since no Republican has ever won the Presidency without winning Ohio. I still say it's a tough map for Kerry. We are also assuming that all the new registrations will vote Democratic. That is an assumption that has yet to be verified. I will say it is encouraging, as people who are content with the way things are probably would not be registering to vote in record numbers. Most likely people are motivated to change things and that is why they are registering.

If Kerry had half of the personality Clinton had he would win in a landslide. The fact that a majority of Americans still view the country as going in the wrong direction and Bush is still hovering around 50% approval proves how weak a candidate Kerry really is. This country is ripe for a change, but Kerry has been unable to capitalize on it.

It is very tough for Kerry to beat an incumbent president in this election, that is why I have never predicted a Kerry victory. And, Kerry does have flaws as a candidate, he is hopeless on those talk shows, he has no clue what to do say. He should play bass or do something.

The CIA 'old guard' goes to war with Bush


London Telegraph | Oct 10 2004

A powerful "old guard" faction in the Central Intelligence Agency has launched an unprecedented campaign to undermine the Bush administration with a battery of damaging leaks and briefings about Iraq.

The White House is incensed by the increasingly public sniping from some senior intelligence officers who, it believes, are conducting a partisan operation to swing the election on November 2 in favour of John Kerry, the Democratic candidate, and against George W Bush.


Jim Pavitt, a 31-year CIA veteran who retired as a departmental chief in August, said that he cannot recall a time of such "viciousness and vindictiveness" in a battle between the White House and the agency.

John Roberts, a conservative security analyst, commented bluntly: "When the President cannot trust his own CIA, the nation faces dire consequences."

Relations between the White House and the agency are widely regarded as being at their lowest ebb since the hopelessly botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by CIA-sponsored exiles under President John F Kennedy in 1961.

There is anger within the CIA that it has taken all the blame for the failings of pre-war intelligence on Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes.

Former senior CIA officials argue that so-called "neo-conservative" hawks such as the vice president, Dick Cheney, the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, and his number three at the defence department, Douglas Feith, have prompted the ill-feeling by demanding "politically acceptable" results from the agency and rejecting conclusions they did not like. Yet Colin Powell, the less hardline secretary of state, has also been scathing in his criticism of pre-war intelligence briefings.

The leaks are also a shot across the bows of Porter Goss, the agency's new director and a former Republican congressman. He takes over with orders from the White House to end the in-fighting and revamp the troubled spy agency as part of a radical overhaul of the American intelligence world.

Bill Harlow, the former CIA spokesman who left with the former director George Tenet in July, acknowledged that there had been leaks from within the agency. "The intelligence community has been made the scapegoat for all the failings over Iraq," he said. "It deserves some of the blame, but not all of it. People are chafing at that, and that's the background to these leaks."

Fighting to defend their patch ahead of the future review, anti-Bush CIA operatives have ensured that Iraq remains high on the election campaign agenda long after Republican strategists such as Karl Rove, the President's closest adviser, had hoped that it would fade from the front pages.

In the latest clash, a senior former CIA agent revealed that Mr Cheney "blew up" when a report into links between the Saddam regime and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist behind the kidnappings and beheadings of hostages in Iraq, including the Briton Kenneth Bigley, proved inconclusive.

Other recent leaks have included the contents of classified reports drawn up by CIA analysts before the invasion of Iraq, warning the White House about the dangers of post-war instability. Specifically, the reports said that rogue Ba'athist elements might team up with terrorist groups to wage a guerrilla war.

Critics of the White House include officials who have served in previous Republican administrations such as Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA head of counter-terrorism and member of the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan.

"These have been an extraordinary four years for the CIA and the political pressure to come up with the right results has been enormous, particularly from Vice-President Cheney.

"I'm afraid that the agency is guilty of bending over backwards to please the administration. George Tenet was desperate to give them what they wanted and that was a complete disaster."

With the simmering rows breaking out in public, the Wall Street Journal declared in an editorial that the administration was now fighting two insurgencies: one in Iraq and one at the CIA.

In a difficult week for President Bush leading up to Friday's presidential debate, the CIA-led Iraqi Survey Group confirmed that Saddam had had no weapons of mass destruction, while Mr Rumsfeld distanced himself from the administration's long-held assertion of ties between Saddam and the al-Qaeda terror network.

Earlier, unguarded comments by Paul Bremer, the former American administrator of Iraq who said that America "never had enough troops on the ground", had given the row about post-war strategy on the ground fresh impetus.

With just 23 days before the country votes for its next president, both sides are braced for further bruising encounters.

I can't resist, seriously:

http://www.ifilm.com/viralvideo?ifilmid=2651126

If the video doesn't start playing within about five seconds, you may have to hit the "change video preferences link" towards the bottom of the left side of the screen and select a video player. Then the video I have chosen to entertain you will start playing. After that you can access maybe 100 other videos (or more) by using the pulldown menu to select the general topic and then clicking on the links to the videos you want to view.

great flick and sight

thanks

I liked the GOP in two minutes video myself.

Harding working George was not bad either.

I also like the "George W. Bush picking his nose" video on the gross-a-rama playlist.

http://propagandamatrix.com/articles/october2004/111004unauthorizedbiography.htm

Anti-Bush Unions Hit Road to Get Out Vote

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=716&e=26&u=/latimests/20041013/ts_latimes/antibushunionshitroadtogetoutvote

The latest Chicago Tribune polls shows Kerry up by a few points in Ohio. I don't believe that this poll is accurate, but I do know that if Bush loses Ohio, he will be filing for unemployment insurance in January. I suspect that Bush will spend what it takes to win Ohio, even at the risk of losing some other states.

The Washington Post reports Florida is even up. I have no idea if this is really the case, but we had someone here a while ago claiming that Kerry had abandoned Florida.

From www.electoral-vote.com

News from the Votemaster

The race is starting to tighten as the effects of the third debate are now kicking in. Kerry has regained his lead in New Jersey albeit by only 2% according to a new Fairleigh Dickinson University poll. More important, we now have Florida as an exact tie. A strategic Vision (R) poll taken Oct. 12-14, puts Bush ahead by 4%, 49% to 45%. But an Insider Advantage poll, also taken Oct 12-14 puts Kerry ahead by 4%, 48% to 44%. I guess we could use the Oct. 4-10 Washington Post poll of Florida to break the tie, but unfortunately it says Florida is 47% to 47%. It will probably be a real squeaker again in Florida. The results could depend on the turnout and in which counties the most voting machines fail.

Theresa "Butterfly Ballot" LePore, the outgoing Palm Beach County, FL Supervisor of Elections, is in the news again. Her test of the new electronic voting machines to be used on Nov. 2 had to be postponed because the server crashed. She blamed it on the the hurricanes that have lashed Florida this season. Still, it is troubling to know that just over two weeks from election day, some of the Florida voting equipment has not even been tested yet. Far more worrisome is that these machines have no way to do recounts in close elections, as required by Florida law. What happens when the law requires something that is impossible? When in doubt, ask SCOTUS. Somebody probably will.

Frank Luntz, the top Republican pollster wrote in the Financial Times: "Step by step, debate-by-debate, John Kerry has addressed and removed many remaining doubts among uncommitted voters. My own polling research after each debate suggests a rather bleak outlook for the Bush candidacy: many who still claim to be 'undecided' are in fact leaning to Mr. Kerry and are about ready to commit." In a world where the spinmeisters constantly claim that their horse can not only walk on water, but also trot and gallop on it, having a top GOP strategist with access to real data say his horse is sinking fast is ominous for the Bush campaign. Read the whole story here.

In case anyone was sitting on the edge of his or her chair waiting for the first (and probably only) poll in the Vermont Senate race, you have to wait no longer. incumbent Patrick Leahy (D) is leading challenger Jack McMullen by more than 3 to 1. Cheney's swearing at Leahy on the floor of the Senate doesn't seem to be helping much Currently the projected Senate will have 51 Republicans and 46 Democrats (including Jeffords) with Colorado, Florida, and South Dakota being exact ties.

Many people have asked me if there is a site about the House races. A reader pointed out www.ourcongress.com. It is more discussion than polls, but if you are interested in a particular House race, it is good place to start.

Its time for Bush to get worried

The big story of the US presidential election up to Thursday was how few undecided voters there were. Now the final presidential debate is over, these voters have essentially made up their minds - and it is George W.Bush who should be worried. If John Kerry is elected the 44th president, it will be because of a single night in Miami, Florida, when he came to debate and Mr. Bush came to - well, no one is quite sure. The double-digit lead that Gallup polls, long considered an authority for presidential polling, gave Mr. Bush after the Republican convention was fully erased by that fateful 90-minute confrontation. 

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/10-15b-04.asp

For those of you billionaires who are having trouble making up your mind:

http://billionairesforbush.com/index.php

While I can provide arguments as to why Kerry is going to win this (independents will break for him; newly registered voters who are not picked up by the polls will break for him; Kerry is doing marginally better in the significant swing states than in the overall polls, etc.) it is too difficult to separate out reasonable conclusions from wishful thinking. Looks like we are all going to have to just wait until election night (and possibly longer).

Top ten reasons Kerry will beat George Bush
www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin/04/n/nstory.pl?fn-ncoldn16

In a fair fight I'm pretty confident Kerry will clean Georgies clock. I am worried about two things though.
1) Another stolen election-electronic voting, voter fraud,
and corrupted courts
2) Terrorists Attack-If it does come I wonder how bad it will be, any guesses?

There is one other factor: the Democrats typically drop some bomb on the opponent in big elections, usually the weekend before the election, so the other guy doesn't have a chance to respond. It could be a DUI, or the other guy was seen at a strip club, or something else, but I am fairly sure that the Demos have something new on George Bush that they will have released through a third party in about 10 days, unless they feel its not necessary.

There is a poll that has Bush up eight points, CNN/USA today/Gallup, appearently because of the lesbian remark, don't belive it.

www.electoral-vote.com/

Kerry is continuing to get a lift from the third debate. He has now overcome Bush's 5% lead in Wisconsin and moved a hair ahead there, 48% to 47% according to a Rasmussen poll conducted Oct. 14. Kerry is now once again leading in the electoral college, but neither candidate has the required 270 electoral votes because Florida, Iowa, and New Hampshire are exactly tied.

It is noteworthy that Nader is still polling a few percent in most states, even in states where he is not on the ballot. He could make the difference and end up giving Bush 4 more years. I saw a website, votepair.org, that matches up Nader supporters in swing states with Kerry supporters in solid states (either red or blue) so they can swap votes, with the swing stater voting for Kerry and the solid stater voting for Nader. In physics they would call this "The law of conservation of Naderism." The Republican answer should be a site pairing Bush and Badnarik the same way, but I haven't seen one. Members of Congress do essentially the same thing all the time: when a Democrat goes back home and knows he will miss a vote, he finds a friendly Republican who agrees to abstain. When the Republican is out of town and misses a vote, the Democrat abstains.

Speaking of Badnarik, Rasmussen included him in his Wisconsin poll of Oct. 14 and he does as well (1%) as Nader (1%). It is a pity the pollsters don't include him more often. He could get nearly as many votes as Nader.

Both the Washington Post and the Louisville Courier-Journal are reporting that the Kentucky Senate race is heating up after incumbent senator Jim Bunning's erratic recent behavior, including reading from a TelePrompTer during a debate and saying that his opponent, Dr. Daniel Mongiardo, looked like one of Saddam's sons. A Garin Hart Yang (D) poll taken Oct. 6-7 shows Bunning's huge lead has melted to 6%.

The New York Times reports that various groups are planning to conduct exit polls on election day to monitor irregularities and possible election fraud. It is a sad state of affairs that elections in Florida are now as bad as in Georgia (the country near Russia, not the state).

Tom Friedman's column today goes beyond the election and discusses three exceedingly unpleasant issues the next president will have to deal with. First, the baby boomers will be retiring in a few years and Social Security has a $74 trillion liability coming up. Second, as education levels are rising in China and India, not only will low-wage jobs be outsourced there, but high-skill jobs as well. Third, one third of the Arab world is under 15, and as they get older and look for nonexistent jobs, there is going to be trouble. Fortunately, Friedman is realistic enough to realize that neither of the presidential candidates will touch any of these topics with a barge pole, despite the fact that they will have a huge effect on America in the years to come. It would be nice if the media, at least, would raise the issue of how the next president is planning to deal with these colossal issues, instead of focusing on who did what 30 years ago.

When the CNN/Gallup poll only looks at registered voters (not likely voters) the Bush lead reduces to 3 percent. Rasmussen uses registered voters, not likely voters, until right before the election because Scott Rasmussen does not believe you can accurately model who is going to vote and who is not at this stage. Given that this election may be unusual in terms of turn-out, etc., Rasmussen's position may be particularly applicable to this election year.

What troubles me though is most of the polls continue to show Bush with a popular vote lead. While I (along with others) identified in earlier posts some of the reasons the polls may be underestimating Kerry's strength (particularly with respect to electoral votes), and things still are shifting, as a Kerry supporter I will state the obvious: I would at this stage rather have Kerry ahead rather than behind Bush in the polls; that Kerry (generally) continues to be behind in the national polls does not help my comfort level with respect to how this is going to turn out.

I think Bush was predicted to win the popular poll in 2000 by 4 or 5 points. I don't think the polls are going to much of an indicator this year,especially considering the race is going to be dicided in a very few states

Here is a summary of the polling three days before the 2000 election:

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/11/6/20236.shtml

Generally confirms Tjuncle's statement above, although with a couple of disparities.

OTOH, the polls just before the 2000 election showed Nader at around 5 percent of the vote, more than the 2.7% he ending up receiving. The disparity between what the polls showed, and what Gore ended up with, may be explained, at least in part, by last-minute changes of preference from Nader to Gore, something that was fairly predictable as many voters pre-disposed to voting for Nader realized such a vote could give the election to Bush (as it ended up doing). While there may be some last-minute switches from Nader to Kerry this time, most polls are putting Nader around 1 to 1.5 percent, so there is not as much room for Nader votes to switch to Kerry at the last minute.

I suspect that some people tell the pollsters that they plan to vote for Nader, in some way they think they are helping him, even though they know better than to vote for him.

If Nader gets more than 1 percent this time around, I would be amazed.

Poll suggests Kerry has lead in swing states

A Washington Post poll shows Kerry with a significant lead in important states that could decide the outcome of the election. The poll found Kerry held a 53 per cent to 43 per cent lead among likely voters in 13 such states.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/10/17/uselexn041017.html

Yeah, but which poll to believe? Today Rasmussen has Bush up in Ohio by one percent and in Florida by two percent, while in the "16 swing states" Rasmussen has been tracking (which include Florida and Ohio) Kerry is ahead overall by 2 percent. While I like hearing about the Washington Post poll, the results must be taken with a grain of salt.

I agree, we are not going too know until Nov 2nd. Still, there is reason to be hopeful without any poll. The Dems have a huge numbers advantage and a well financed ground campaign. I'll say it again, the only way Bush can win is to steal the election or a big attack a day or two before the election. It's almost funny, Osama is probably going to decide if Georgie gets elected even more so than the Supreme Court.

For what it's worth, both Reuters and Rasmussen now have the race tied. Rasmussen has it tied at 47% each:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Presidential_Tracking_Poll.htm

Reuters/Zogby has it tied at 45% each:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=3&u=/nm/20041018/pl_nm/campaign_poll_monday_dc

http://www.electoral-vote.com/

News from the Votemaster

Kerry keeps moving up in the electoral college. A new Survey USA poll shows he has now inched ahead of Bush in Florida, although his 1% lead means the state is still a statistical tie. Nevertheless, we now show Kerry with more than the critical 270 votes in the electoral college to win. Perhaps more signficant, though, is the fact that in states where Kerry's lead is at least 5%, he has 228 electoral votes. In states where Bush's lead is at least 5%, he has 183 electoral votes. Clearly the race is still wide open.

If you love horror stories, Slate has a good one for you by Richard L. Hasen. In it, he describes five ways the presidential election could end up in the Supreme Court. Briefly summarized, they are:
- Voting glitches involving electronic or other voting machines
- Litigation over which provisional ballots are valid
- A fight over the Colorado amendment to split the electoral vote
- A tie in the electoral college or a faithless elector
- A terrorist attack that disrupts voting in a swing state

Are the voters stupid? It is not considered politically correct to point out that an awful lot of voters don't have a clue what they are talking about. A recent poll from Middle Tennessee State University sheds some light on the subject. For example, when asked which candidate wants to roll back the tax cuts for people making over $200,000 a year, a quarter thought it was Bush and a quarter didn't know. And it goes down hill from there. When asked which candidate supports specific positions on various issues, the results were no better than chance. While this poll was in Tennessee, I strongly suspect a similar poll in other states would get similar results. I find it dismaying that many people will vote for Bush because they want to tax the rich (which he opposes) or vote for Kerry because they want school vouchers for religious schools (which he opposes).

www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-na-fifty18oct18,1,4757942.story

Polls Put Bush on the Edge

Since Gallup began systematic polling in 1952, eight incumbents have sought reelection. Bill Clinton in 1996, Jimmy Carter in 1980, Gerald Ford in 1976, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 all attracted a smaller share of the vote on election day than they did in the final Gallup survey. Richard M. Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1984 finished almost exactly at their final polling numbers.

George H.W. Bush in 1992 ran seven-tenths of a percentage point ahead of his final poll number, the biggest increase for any incumbent since 1952. The one exception to this pattern was in 1948, when Gallup polled less often, and the final survey, begun in mid-October, missed Harry S. Truman's late surge; Truman exceeded his final poll number by a full 5 percentage points.

Conversely, challengers — like Reagan in 1980, Carter in 1976, Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Adlai Stevenson in 1956 — have frequently polled higher on election day than in the final survey.

Experts like Abramowitz said those results indicated that whether Bush was running slightly ahead, slightly behind or even, he couldn't breathe easy as long as his own support in the polls stood below 50%. "The key thing to watch is whether Bush can get himself to the 50% mark or at least very close to it," Abramowitz said. "That is more important than who is ahead. Even if Bush is ahead by a point or two, if he is at 47 or 48%, I think he's in real danger."

>>Are the voters stupid? It is not considered politically correct to point out that an awful lot of voters don't have a clue what they are talking about.<<

There even are some members of this board, apparently hibernating presently, who don't realize that the worst thing that could happen to our hobby is for Bush to be re-elected.