It's that simple.

Former conservative Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough: "I don't know how anyone can see this and not say that this was a very clear Kerry win on the issues."

David Gergen: "One of the best debates we've had in a long time... John Kerry had the most to prove, and he proved it... Kerry's back in the game now."

JOHN KERRY WON THE FIRST DEBATE, and that makes me happy.

[Update 8:54]: CNN reporting that the Gallup poll taken immediately after the debate breaks down thusly: Kerry win 53, Bush win 37. This is awesome!

[Update 9:06]: Newsweek's Howard Fineman says that Bush spinners looked worried but Kerry spinners were "hopping and skipping"; this means htat Kerry did better than Bush.

Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford: "Kerry did what he needed to do."

[Update 9:07]: MSNBC's Joe Scarborough: "There's no question that on style, Kerry won."

MSNBC: Kerry looked Presidential.

We can continue here.

[Update 7:33]: This just in... Mrs. Allan Greenspan (Andrea Mitchell) finally says Kerry did well. She generally leans right, so it's great to hear her be fair.

[Update 7:35]: Former conservative Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough says that this was John Kerry's best performance ever. Strong words. "I don't know how anyone can see this and not say that this was a very clear Kerry win on the issues." Wow!

[Update 7:38]: Andrea Mitchell- Reaction shots could kill the President, whereas Kerry looked great in his reaction shots.

[Update 7:42]: WES CLARK ON CNN! This makes me happy... very happy!

[Update 7:45]: Kerry looked calm and strong, "Bush didn't look like he wanted to be there." (MSNBC analyst)

[Update 7:47]: CBS Poll- Kerry win 44, Bush 26!!!! This is great.

[Update 7:51]: CBS Poll of uncommitted voters on a clear plan of Iraq- Kerry has a clear plan 51%, Bush has a clear plan 38%

CBS Poll of uncommitted voters on how the debate changed view of Kerry- improved view of Kerry 52%, worsened view of Kerry 14%

I'd have to say the response sounds good!

[Update 7:54]: CNN internet poll (at the bottom of the page)- Kerry win 84%, Bush 12%. This, unlike the CBS poll, was not scientific, but it's a good thing to see.

[Update 7:58]: MSNBC internet poll (at the top of the page)- Kerry win 73%, Bush 27%. This, unlike the CBS poll, was not scientific, but it's a good thing to see.

[Update 8:03]: A reader comment-

Was anyone watching C-SPAN? Bush left the stage first, leaving Kerry and his wife---AND THE AUDIENCE STOOD UP AN CHEERED KERRY! Thanks for letting us know... I missed that.

[Update 8:16]: Brian Williams fact-checking on MSNBC:

• Bush says we've trained 100,000 Iraqi troops already. The only problem is that Iyad Illawi says only 45,000 have been trained, and I'm sure that's a high figure.

[Update 8:18]: Clintonista Joe Lockhart is doing a great job in spinning the debate, and I'm glad to see that Kerry picked him up for the campaign.

[Update 8:23]: I just flipped over to Fox News. Boy, has Peggy Noonan had a lot of plastic surgery since the last time I saw her. She almost looks like Van Susternernerner...

[Update 8:26]: Jon Meacham, Newsweek Managing Editor-

"Bush is running on 'I'm a leader, even if I'm not saying where I'm leading'" (or something along these lines).

[Update 8:29]: CNN spin- Jorge Ramos, Univision News Anchor, seemed to indicate that Kerry did better than Bush. David Gergen: "One of the best debates we've had in a long time... John Kerry had the most to prove, and he proved it... Kerry's back in the game now."

I like what I'm hearing.

---

Feel free to comment in this thread... just click the "comments" button. I'll try to put the best ones up on the front page.

I'm watching the debate on MSNBC, and I'll keep updating this post throughout the evening.

[Update 6:11]: Unacceptable answer from the President on whether he thinks America is more likely to be hit if John Kerry is elected; he didn't say yes, he didn't say no. This underscores his campaign's attempt to make Americans think that the nation will be hit if Kerry is elected.

Kerry did not answer the question as well as I wish he did, hitting the President for this unfair attack, but listing the Generals supporting him (especially Eisenhower's son) was an effective counterattack.

[Update 6:19]: The President looks a bit flustered on whether Iraq was a diversion from the War on Terror. He, like Don Rumsfeld a few days ago, almost confused Saddam and OBL, which doesn't look so good.

Kerry hit back hard, saying that the President diverted funds from Afghanistan to Iraq and strongly said that Bush has mishandled the war. Good stuff from Kerry.

[Update 6:24]: Kerry has a great point--the President and I don't need a tax cut, we need to defend America.

[Update 6:27]: Bush is looking pretty flustered... it looks like Kerry is getting under the President's skin, and that's exactly what he needs to do to win.

[Update 6:30]: Kerry on the "I voted for it before I voted against it":

I made a mistake in the way I explained myself, but the President made a mistake in leading the country to war... which is worse?

Beatiful! That's exactly what we want to hear.

[Update 6:38]: Kerry just hit the "truth" line, and I think he should continue with it.

[Update 6:39]: North Korea getting nuclear weapons... Kerry says, "talk about mixed messages!"

[Update 6:44]: Bush just fell into Kerry's trap, saying that the best leader doesn't go around changing positions. I hope Kerry uses this to say that you can't lead if you can't admit when you're wrong.

[Update 6:46]: A comment I really liked on this thread:

Annonymous- I think Kerry looks a lot more presidential and his answers are a lot better. Book looks very hesitant when answering...of course we all knew public speaking wasn't his strong suit. However, I think that Bush looked a lot more polished in the 2000 debates than he is looking tonight.

[Update 6:47]: Great Kerry line... the President's plan is "four words: MORE OF THE SAME." This is a great comparison.

[Update 6:49]: Good to hear Kerry mention Israel so it doesn't appear as though Bush is the only one that cares about the country.

[Update 6:57]: "Saddam Hussein didn't attack us; Osama Bin Laden attacked us, Al Qaeda attacked us." It's great to hear Kerry hitting the President for diverting strength from Afghanistan and the War on Terror to Iraq.

[Update 6:58]: "If the President could have been more patient..." That's what I want to hear!

[Update 7:03]: Wow... the President can pronounce world leaders' names. Impressive!

[Update 7:04]: With all of these giant pauses in his speeches, the President sure sounds flustered.

[Update 7:07]: I take that back... the President can't pronounce world leaders' names (who's Kim Jing Il?)

[Update 7:09]: Another comment...

Annonymous- Did you notice on the split screen that Fox (since they control the cameras) has made George as tall as Kerry? Cheap shot on Fox's part. I've been watching on PBS, so no, but thanks for alerting me. I'm watching over at Fox now and I'll let you know how I feel when I notice it.

[Update 7:12]: GREAT question from Lehrer, asking Bush if he thinks there is anything that makes him think Kerry shouldn't be President. He asked it before, but Bush didn't answer it. Bush is not handling it well, at least in my opinion.

[Update 7:15]: "It's one thing to be certain, but it's another thing to be certain and be wrong." I've been waiting for Kerry to say this for SO long. It's a great line. He's got to keep on hitting it.

[Update 7:16]: What is the greatest threat facing America? Kerry: "Nuclear proliferation. Nuclear proliferation." That's right on.

[Update 7:19]: "You're talking about mixed messages"... this is a President who is trying to stop nuclear proliferation but is beginning to proliferate a new nuclear weapon.

Bush could not have fumbled the response worse. He sounds like a bumbling idiot, and having a bumbling idiot as President is not a show of strength.

[Update 7:20]: Another comment...

Nucular Pliferation

[Update 7:22]: I do notice that Fox is trying to make the President look as tall as Kerry, though it looks silly as the podiums are in different places on the split screen.

[Update 7:26]: I didn't hear Kerry say anything about Saddam Hussein, so why did the President just bring it up in his rebuttal? I don't get it... perhaps it's because he just doesn't have the mental capacity to handle more than three lines at a time.

[Update 7:27]: Another comment...

I want to see how many more times GW can mispronounce "Vladimir".

---

Feel free to comment in this thread... just click the "comments" button. I'll try to put the best ones up on the front page.

I'm off to class until just before the debate, but I'll have ongoing analysis during the debate and afterthoughts as soon as possible following the debate, so stick around Basie! I also encourage you to post your feelings in the comments thread, and I'll try to put the best ones on the front page.

This is great news:

The Republican-controlled House emphatically defeated a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage Thursday, the latest in a string of conservative pet causes pushed to a vote by GOP leaders in the run-up to Election Day.

The vote was 227-186, far short of the two-thirds needed for approval on a measure that President Bush backed but the Senate had previously rejected.

[...]

Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic whip, accused GOP leaders of "raw political cynicism" and said they hoped to "create the fodder for a demagogic political ad."

Whatever the motivation, there was no disagreement that the amendment lacked the two-thirds majority needed to pass, just as it failed by a lopsided margin in the Senate earlier this year.

Link.

Here's more from last week's Willamette Week:

SHUT UP and VOTE!

Zach Dundas

According to the poll of eight local Klingons, a whopping 75 percent support the Democratic nominee.

Two Klingons polled--or 25 percent--said they planned to write in Satan.

Bush scored an abysmal zero percent in the poll.

"A good war is based on honor, not deception," says K'tok (Earth name: Clyde Lewis), a 40-year-old Klingon from Lair Hill. "The first warrior, President Bush, deceived us all with this war."

Link of the entire article.

From Rasmussen Reports:

In the sixteen-Battleground States that are likely to determine the winner of Election 2004, President Bush and Senator Kerry are tied at 47% each.

Until the Republican National Convention, Kerry had been ahead in the 16-Battleground States for most of the year. In Election 2000, Bush and Gore split the vote in these states 48% to 48%.Link.

Michael Scanlon, a public-relations consultant and former aide to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) now under investigation for his business dealings with Indian tribes, failed to show up to testify before a Senate panel yesterday after federal marshals were unable to serve him with the committee’s subpoena.

“The U.S. marshals tell us Mr. Scanlon is hiding out in his house with the blinds drawn,” said Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, after the hearing. “But we’re going to [subpoena] him again. He will be before the committee one way or another. … I want to ask him questions. He is going to have to duck and dodge.”

Josephine Hearn, "Scanlon ‘is hiding out’", The Hill, September 30, 2004.

From this weeks issue of the Economist, which you can buy at local news stands:

So that's where Rummy's been

A new “Porn for Kerry DVD” will portray the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Jenna Bush. Profits from the epic (“part political satire and part hardcore hot sex”) will go to help the Kerry campaign.

New York Post, September 29th

Klingons for Kerry

“A good war is based on honour, not deception. The first warrior, President Bush, deceived us all with this war.”

K'tok, ie, Clyde Lewis, an Oregonian Klingon. An in-depth poll of eight warrior-race members purchasing “Trekkies 2” revealed that 75% support Mr Kerry and 25% plan to vote for Satan. Willamette Week Online, September 22nd

Link. (Subscription reqd.)

I like this story.

John Eisenhower, son of Republican President Eisenhower, said in a newspaper column this week that he will vote for Democratic Sen. John Kerry for president on Nov. 2.

In a rare public announcement, Eisenhower said he switched his party affiliation from Republican to independent after 50 years after losing confidence in his former party. He said Kerry has demonstrated courage, competence and a concern for tackling the "widening socio-economic gap in this country."

"There are times when we must break with the past, and I believe this is one of them," Eisenhower wrote in the opinion column published Tuesday in The Union Leader of Manchester, N.H.

Link.

The race is still quite tight, according to the most recent Harris Interactive poll. Mirroring the results of this weeks Economist/YouGov poll, the Harris poll of likely voters has Bush up by a 48-46 margin, within the margin of error of +/- 2.5%.

Michigan: Strategic Vision (R) poll of 801 likely voters from September 26-28, 2004, MoE of +/- 3.0%

Kerry 49, Bush 42

Minnesota: Strategic Vision (R) poll of 801 likely voters from September 26-28, 2004, MoE of +/- 3.0%

Kerry 48, Bush 46

New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll of 489 likely voters from September 23-28, 2004, MoE of +/- 4.5%

Kerry 45, Bush 44

Ohio: CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of 802 registered voters from September 25-28, 2004, MoE of +/- 4.0%

Kerry 50, Bush 46

Pennsylvania: CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of 799 registered voters from September 25-28, 2004, MoE of +/- 4.0%

Kerry 49, Bush 45

Pennsylvania: Mason-Dixon poll of 625 likely voters from September 27-28, 2004, MoE of +/- 4.0%

Kerry 45, Bush 44

Though President Bush has constantly been leading in Virginia--a state taken by the GOP in every Presidential contest since 1964--recent polling indicates that he is having trouble getting over 50% support in the state. If you check out electoral-vote.com's graph of the state (excluding the most recent SurveyUSA poll, which appears to be an outlier), the President hasn't been over 50% since May.

A new Mason-Dixon poll of 625 likely Virginia voters conducted from September 24-27 shows the President with a lead of 49-43 over challenger John Kerry. While it may appear as though Kerry does not have a chance at winning the state, the fact that the President cannot muster a majority in a likely voter poll--which generally favor Republican candidates--speaks to the Senator's chances at winning the state.

I'm not sure if Kerry is even planning on campaigning in the state, but I think it would behoove him to place some focus in Virginia--especially over states like Oregon and Washington--to broaden his base of possible pickups in the Electoral College and thus increase his chances at winning the White House.

There are a couple of new polls out from SurveyUSA that show the Democrats have a decent shot at picking up a couple of seats being vacated by Republicans. Here's the info:

Democrats have opty for pick-up in CO CD3: Salazar leads by 12 pts

Open House seat in a District that Bush carried in 2000

• In an election for U.S. House today in Colorado's 3rd Congressional District, to fill Republican Scott McInnis's seat, Democrat John Salazar defeats Republican Greg Walcher 52% to 40%, according to SurveyUSA poll of 731 likely CD3 voters conducted 9/25-9/27.
  
• John Salazar (brother of Ken Salazar, who is running for U.S. Senate in Colorado), holds 92% of Democrat base. Just 5% of Democrats cross-over to Walcher. Walcher holds 74% of GOP base. 19% of Republicans cross-over. Independents break 2:1 for Democrat.
  
• Walcher, just emerging from bitter primary, is tied in suburban parts of district, but trails by 16 in urban areas. Walcher leads by 41 pts among conservatives. Salazar leads by 35 pts among moderates & by 74 pts among liberals.

Washington CD8: Ross, Reichert in slugfest to fill open GOP seat

Opportunity for Democrat pick-up in battle for Jennifer Dunn's GOP house seat

• In an election for U.S. House of Representatives today in Washington's 8th Congressional District, Democrat Dave Ross & Republican Dave Reichert tie, according to SurveyUSA poll of 596 likely WA CD8 voters conducted 9/27 + 9/28.
  
• It's Ross 45%, Reichert 43% today. 12% are undecided or would vote for someone else.
  
• Many demographics are fiercely contested. The race is effectively even among young voters, voters age 50+, whites, men, college grads & urban dwellers. Ross with slight edge among women & in suburbs. Reichert holds 83% of GOP base. Ross holds 78% of Democrat base. Ross has 16-pt advantage among independents. Reichert up 56 pts among conservatives. Ross up 26 pts among moderates & up 48 pts among liberals.

It sure sounds like it...

After the swift boat attacks of August and the Rathergate debacle – CBS' botched attempt to paint President Bush as an insolent National Guard officer deserving of court martial – John Kerry seems to have found his footing. Kerry seems a liberated man.

He is now pummeling the president on the great issue of this campaign. "The invasion of Iraq was a profound diversion from the battle against our greatest enemy, Al Qaeda," declares Kerry. It has turned Iraq into a haven for terrorists. He describes "the real war."

"(T)o destroy our enemy we have to know our enemy. ... They are not just out to kill us, they want to provoke a conflict that will radicalize the people of the Muslim world, turning them against the United States and the West. And they hope to transform that anger into a force that will topple the region's governments and pave the way for a new empire: an oppressive, fundamentalist superstate stretching across a vast area from Europe to Africa, from the Middle East to Central Asia. That's their goal."

Truth be told, this is exactly what we confront.

From a Pat Buchanan piece today.

[Note: The Los Angeles Times opinion section editors accepted this op-ed piece for publication before the last presidential election, only to have it vetoed three days later by some higher-up managerial intervention. With the recent publication of Kitty Kelley’s The Family, along with the charge therein that George W. Bush used cocaine at Camp David during his father’s presidential term, i.e., past George W. Bush’s 40th birthday, it would seem that the issues raised four years ago in this piece are again current and have yet to be addressed.]



A Tragic Unfolding of Character


John Seery October 2000


Has George W. Bush ever used hard drugs such as cocaine? Even as a scrutinizing campaign season draws soon to a conclusion, the American public still doesn’t know Bush’s answer to this question. He has groused about, danced around, and heretofore successfully evaded the famous “cocaine question,” and shockingly news editors and press pundits have deferred to his annoyance over the matter. Media reporters across the nation, unable to find hard confirmation of earlier allegations about possible drug use in Bush’s past, haven’t even put the question to candidate Bush for many months. The silence is curious. Yet for many reasons—for one, to avoid another grueling impeachment trial of a sitting U.S. President—the American electorate deserves an unequivocal answer to this question, which indeed holds public, not simply personal ramifications. George W. Bush should step forward before the election and volunteer a simple and clear answer: yes or no.

Rumors about past drug use have dogged Governor Bush since his first days running for governor, but rumors should be regarded as only rumors until proven otherwise. Yet Bush for years has prolonged the rumor mongering about his alleged drug use by ducking and dodging the issue. He has created a climate of additional suspicion, intrigue, and ambiguity. His evasiveness raises questions about his current, not just about his past character and candor.

Even more troubling, possible use of cocaine raises a question not just about character, but about Bush’s legal fitfulness for elected office at all. If he indeed used cocaine, he would have committed a felony. If convicted as a felon, under almost all state constitutions he would lose the right to vote and the right to hold elected office. Surely the American people deserve to know: Are we about to elect a felon, albeit an unconvicted felon, to the Presidency of these United States?

In 1994, when asked about drug use in his campaign for governor of Texas, Bush replied, “What I did as a kid? I don’t think it’s relevant.” But it was and still is relevant, if only because his dismissive response reveals a profound misunderstanding of the severity of the charge. Imagine if he had sidestepped a similar question about other felonies such as armed robbery or rape. Moreover, if the rumors are true, namely that Bush used cocaine in college through the end of his military service at age 26, he certainly wasn’t a “kid” at the time but was an adult citizen of this country, especially in the eyes of the law.

About a year ago, during the presidential primaries, 11 out of 12 candidates in both parties denied ever using cocaine. George W. Bush was the sole candidate who refused to answer the question. He quipped, “When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible.” But youthful irresponsibility is not the same as felonious criminality, and most state constitutions observe that distinction quite strictly.

At the time, the press probed for more details. Bush first said that he could pass the kind of background check required of Clinton administration employees, which meant in effect that he had been drug-free for the past seven years. On further prompting, he said that he could pass the kind of background check his father imposed on White House employees, which was interpreted to mean that he has been clean for the past 25 years, since he was 28 years old. A bevy of dubious reports then emerged about “lost weekends in Mexico” and about failed or deliberately skipped military medical exams hinting provocatively at hard drug use.

Bush fended off a media frenzyby saying that he refused to play the game of “gotcha” politics and would answer no more drug-related questions about himself. His parents, George, Sr. and Barbara Bush, both defended their son’s “principled” refusal to talk about his “misspent youth,” though they admitted that they had never actually asked him about drug use. Apparently the Bush family wanted the media to follow suit, thus abdicating their responsibility to serve as a vigilant fourth estate. Indeed, many media commentators started lamenting gutter journalism, tabloid tactics, and privacy intrusions, as if it were beneath their dignity to inquire further into George W. Bush’s most basic track record as a law-abiding citizen, or not.

“Gotcha” politics based on youthful or private indiscretions are regrettable. Many members of the boomer generation indulged in “recreational” drugs in their youth, and maybe we should concentrate instead on their more recent public behavior, policies, and qualifications. But a distinction needs to be drawn between “hard” drug use on the one hand, and marijuana use, heavy drinking, and womanizing on the other—because the former was and still is felonious. Our democracy does not allow felons to participate in most forms of electoral politics, and voters tend not to reward those exhibiting felonious behaviors by electing them to high office. Whereas then-candidate Bill Clinton feebly confronted but nevertheless diffused the issue of his youthful marijuana smoking by claiming that he “never inhaled,” George W. Bush cannot effect a similar triangulation by saying that he “sniffed but never snorted” cocaine. Were he to admit such a serious crime, compounded by a calculated cover-up, he would either need to leave office or be forced to leave, just as drug-aided Olympic athletes must return their gold medals even after the competition is over.

George W. Bush has waged his entire presidential campaign on character. He has promised to restore honor and dignity to the Oval Office. No one, even a President, should be above the law, he has told us. He wants the President to be able to serve as a role model for our kids. He wants to be able to speak straight from the heart without needing to appeal to obfuscations such as “no controlling legal authority.” But his fuzzy answers and fuzzy memory on the drug question, left unchallenged by a complicit or obsequious national media, belie and potentially sabotage his high-minded aspirations. The American public deserves to know in advance whether he is legally fit to uphold the laws of our land. If he has nothing to hide, then he should exonerate his good name as soon as possible.




Professor John Seery is Professor of Politics at Pomona College.

I was just speaking with a source of mine very involved in Democratic politics (about as insider as it gets) who let me know that the big story from Washington is that the Pentagon--unhappy with the Bush Administration for trying to pin the Iraq mess on them--is the source of the constant stream of leaks in the past few weeks and months. Interesting stuff.

Later tonight or tomorrow morning I'll have an important Bush cocaine piece that had been scheduled to run in the LA Times Op/Ed section in the fall of 2000 before the paper was bought out by the Tribune. It's a very interesting piece from a highly respected American political theorist, so I think you should enjoy it.

Although it is certainly disconcerting that the ballot initiative proposing Gay Marriage ban in the state of Oregon is currently ahead in the polls (57-38 as of 9/13-16), there appears to be some good news in the fight to defeat the measure. Jeff Wright notes in today's Eugene Register-Guard that opponents of the amendment to the state constitution have been drawing significantly more financial backing than the proponents. In "Foes of gay-marriage ban outspend backers", write reports:

Opponents have raised the most money, but supporters may have the upper hand in persuading Oregon voters that marriage should be limited to unions involving a man and a woman.

With the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force accounting for nearly half the amount, opponents of Ballot Measure 36 raised more than $1.1 million through Sept. 16. That figure has since climbed to about $1.4 million toward a goal of nearly $3 million, said Shauna Shindler Ballo with the No on Constitutional Amendment 36 Committee.

Supporters, led by the Defense of Marriage Coalition, have raised nearly $660,000 through Sept. 16. Many of those supporters, both statewide and in Lane County, have been churches. South Hills Assembly of God in south Eugene was the largest Lane County contributor at $1,000.

Wright continues:

But Ballo said a poll by opponents - giving respondents the primary arguments both for and against the measure - shows a statistical dead heat. The campaign has enlisted 5,000 volunteers to take part in door-to-door outreach, Ballo said.

"Some `yes' voters can be moved to `no' with enough information on the measure," she said. "We're working to talk with both the undecideds and the persuadables."

Ballo said opponents are already airing radio spots and plan to begin airing TV ads on Oct. 11, just before ballots are mailed for the Nov. 2 general election.

Oregon is one of 11 states with proposed constitutional amendments on the November ballot to ban same-sex marriage - but the only state where opponents are given any chance of prevailing.

Again, it's quite disappointing that in a state with the great history of progressivism like Oregon, a faction of extreme conservatives has been able to convince a majority of the population that discrimination should be written into the state constitution. That having been said, anti-gay groups like Lon Mabon's Oregon Citizens Alliance have been attempting to do similar things in the state for more than a decade, and though nearly half of the electorate has voted for amendments seeking to curtail the rights of the state's homosexuals, the initiatives have always been defeated.

It doesn't get any bigger than this:

In an assessment that differs sharply with his view today, Dick Cheney more than a decade ago defended the decision to leave Saddam Hussein in power after the first Gulf War, telling a Seattle audience that capturing Saddam wouldn't be worth additional U.S. casualties or the risk of getting "bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."

Cheney, who was secretary of defense at the time, made the observations answering audience questions after a speech to the Discovery Institute in August 1992, nearly 18 months after U.S. forces routed the Iraqi army and liberated Kuwait.

[...]

"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth?" Cheney said then in response to a question.

"And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."

Kudos to Joel Connelly and Charles Pope of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for finding this important quote. Link.

This week's Economist/You Gov poll has just come out and it contains a lot of good news for John Kerry. The poll was conducted September 27-29, with 2773 respondents ("Registered to vote": 2402, "Will definitely vote": 2225), and the MoE is +/- 2%.

Suppose the election for President were being held TODAY. Who would you vote for? George W. Bush, the Republican; John F Kerry, the Democrat; Ralph Nader, an independent candidate, or someone else?

Total; Def to vote (Last week, Two Weeks ago)
George Bush 46% (45, 46); 47% (46, 48)
John Kerry 45% (46, 45); 46% (47, 46)
Ralph Nader 2% (1, 1); 1% (1, 1)
Someone else 2% 2%
Would not vote 1% 0%
Don't know 5% 3%

As of now, what do you think you are most likely to end up doing on November 2?

(Total, Def to vote)
George W Bush 47% 48%
John F Kerry 47% 48%
Ralph Nader 2% 1%
Someone else 3% 3%
Not vote at all 1% 0%

In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?

(Total, Def to vote)
Satisfied 38% 42%
Dissatisfied 57% 56%
Don't know 4% 3%

Do you approve or disapprove of the way President George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

(Total, Def to vote)
Approve 43% 46%
Disapprove 52% 51%
Don't know 5% 3%

Who would you prefer to be in control of the CONGRESS after the next election?

(Total, Def to vote)
Democrats 43% 45%
Republicans 38% 42%
Don't Know 18% 13%

There has been essentially no change in this poll over the past five weeks indicating that not only is Bush not pulling away--as some polls might indicate--the race is in fact tied and hs settled in a tie. This is quite different than a substantial Bush lead, which is found is some heavily skewed surveys (like the one from Gallup).

Although Kerry's support is a few points lower than it was at its peak of 48% in this poll, Bush has yet to crack 47% in the survey. For all of teh hemming and hawing about Kerry's plight, the fact remains that an incumbent that is unable to pull a lead against a challenger is in a poor situation, regardless of anything else.

In tonight's The Daily Show, Jon Stewart felt John Kerry is a little too tan now... a la George Hamilton.

As if he weren't facing mounting pressure from a possible House Ethics Committee probe and the indictment of several of his former employees who worked in a PAC he set up, it appears as though House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is in a bit of trouble once again. Unsurprisingly, the issue at hand regards possibly unethical contributions.

Susan Schmidt and Thomas Edsall write in tomorrow morning's issue of the Washington Post that the heat is being turned up on the Texas Republican. In "DeLay Criticized in Probe of Tribal Funds", they write thusly:

The investigation of powerful GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his business associate Michael Scanlon led to partisan sparring yesterday as a Senate committee prepared to begin a hearing today into the millions of dollars in lobbying and public relations fees the pair were paid by Indian tribes that operate gambling casinos.

Democrats contended that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's ability to campaign for fellow Republicans has been damaged by news reports on the business dealings of Scanlon, a former spokesman for the Texas Republican, and Abramoff, and the indictment last week of three DeLay aides on charges of illegally raising political funds.

[...]

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee and a federal grand jury are investigating at least $50 million in lobbying and public relations fees Abramoff and Scanlon garnered from Indian tribes that operate gambling casinos. The FBI and a task force of five federal agencies are investigating campaign contributions the two men directed the tribes to make to members of Congress, and whether tribal funds were misused in the contracts the two men obtained or the fees they collected, government sources said.

It's been since 1994 when a sitting House Speaker has been ousted and I'm not sure when the last time a party's #2 Represented has been forced out of office; nevertheless, it's appearing that the more DeLay's associates are under investigation and the closer these investigations get to the Congressman, the more radioactive he becomes to his party. I'm definitely not saying that Democrat Richard Morrison has such a great shot at knocking off DeLay, but if (or possibly when) one of these charges sticks, DeLay and the Republicans are going to be in a really tight spot.

The AP wire has the story:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a last-ditch bid to put Ralph Nader on Oregon's election ballot.

Nader supporters had asked the court last week to block Oregon from printing ballots without Nader's name. The court declined, although Justice Stephen Breyer noted he supported the stay.

Gina Holland, "Nader Supporters Lose Supreme Court Appeal", September 28, 2004.

Research 2000 has just finished a poll from Oregon that shows John Kerry once again at the magical 50% number in the Beaver state, an indication that the race for the state's 7 electoral votes has settled into a nice lead for the Democrat. The likely voter poll shows little movement from last week as Kerry now leads by a 50-44 margin (it was 51-44 before), with a MoE of +/- 4.0%.

Also striking is the fact that Kerry's ratings in the state are significantly higher than those of the President. The Senator is viewed favorably by 50% of the state to 38% unfavorable, while the President's numbers are 44% positive and 49% negative.

The results of this poll are very similar to other recent polling in the state. Here is a brief rundown:

• Research 2000 (9/20-23; 600 respondents): Kerry 50, Bush 44
  
• Rasmussen (9/8-21; 500 respondents): Kerry 51, Bush 43
  
• SurveyUSA* (9/19-21; 747 respondents): 52-43
  
• Zogby (9/13-17; 787 respondents): Kerry 53.9, Bush 41.9
  
• Research 2000 (9/13-16; 600 respondents): Kerry 51, Bush 44
  

* - Reweighted to reflect the real Oregon electorate.

The truth that becomes very apparent when looking at these polls is that John Kerry is over 50% in Oregon, and that's all that really matters. You might look to see progressive 527 organizations moving out of the state soon--like they did Michigan--to redeploy staff and reallocate funds to closer swing states. As I argued many times in my "Oregon: No Longer a Battleground State" series, while the Beaver state was close in 2000, it should be an easy win for Kerry in November and he'd be better served by paying attention to Ohio and Wisconsin (among other states) than Oregon.

New DSCCPoll Gives Knowles Biggest Lead

A new Democratic poll showed former Gov. Tony Knowles (D) leading Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) with his biggest lead to date.

The Global Strategy Group poll commissioned by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and conducted Sept. 19-21 showed Knowles leading 47 percent to 41 percent among 600 likely voters.

The survey's error margin was 4 percent.

Independent polls have shown the race neck-and-neck for months, with Knowles often enjoying a slight lead but one usually within the poll's margin of error.

Registration reqd., so no link available.

This from the Investor's Business Daily/Christian Science Monitor/TIPP poll:

LIKELY VOTERS
KERRY 46 (43)
BUSH 45 (46)

REGISTERED VOTERS
KERRY 44 (43)
BUSH 44 (44)

Not too bad... not too bad at all.

While Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews and other rock stars sing on a "Vote for Change" concert tour, another disgruntled group - this one of scientists - will crisscross the well-worn landscape of battleground states over the next month, giving lectures that will argue that the Bush administration has ignored and misused science.

The group, Scientists and Engineers for Change, another addition to the flood of so-called 527 advocacy groups that have filled this year's election discourse, announced its existence and plans yesterday in a telephone news conference. At least 25 scientists will give talks in 10 contested states: Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Among the headlining lecturers are 10 Nobel Prize winners, including Dr. Douglas D. Osheroff, a professor of physics at Stanford; Dr. Peter C. Agre, a professor of biological chemistry at Johns Hopkins; and Dr. Harold Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health.

Kenneth Chang, "Scientists Begin a Campaign to Oppose President's Policies", September 28, 2004.

There is an interesting story in today's issue of the Hill about John Kerry's tactics to win the debates--even if he doesn't actually win them. Hans Nichols writes in "Dem lawmakers primed for big post-debate spin" that Kerry is hoping to use a cadre of surrogates to first lower the expectations then trumpet his performance in the debate, an attempt to avoid a major mistake by Al Gore. Nichols writes:

The Kerry campaign has enlisted congressional Democrats to play down expectations of the challenger’s performance in the first presidential debate this Thursday, and then flood the airwaves with jubilant analysis that he has won it.

The Democratic lawmakers will seek to influence media analysis by drumming campaign talking points into the press’s “echo chamber” before and after the Florida showdown. Democrats want to avoid the mistakes they say 2000 nominee Al Gore made by ceding both pre-debate expectations and the post-debate conversation to Republicans, allowing aggressive GOP lawmakers and sympathetic pundits to set the tone for the debate analysis.

Although it would clearly have been better had this story not reached the media, it's nonetheless good to see that the Kerry folks know what they're doing with the debates. I cannot overstate the importance of expectations in debates, and if current polling holds true, the populace expects the President to win the debates, so it appears as though Kerry has won round one of the debates. We'll have to wait until Thursday night for round II...

Douglas Jehl and David Sanger have the story in today's New York Times:

The same intelligence unit that produced a gloomy report in July about the prospect of growing instability in Iraq warned the Bush administration about the potential costly consequences of an American-led invasion two months before the war began, government officials said Monday.

The estimate came in two classified reports prepared for President Bush in January 2003 by the National Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises the director of central intelligence. The assessments predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict.

One of the reports also warned of a possible insurgency against the new Iraqi government or American-led forces, saying that rogue elements from Saddam Hussein's government could work with existing terrorist groups or act independently to wage guerrilla warfare, the officials said. The assessments also said a war would increase sympathy across the Islamic world for some terrorist objectives, at least in the short run, the officials said.

"Prewar Assessment on Iraq Saw Chance of Strong Divisions", September 28, 2004.

This can't help the President, but hopefully it will stick--because pretty much everything else hasn't.

This is where Charlie Cook sees the situation in the House today:

Bottom line: The scenario today suggests that Republicans could gain or lose as many as three seats. That would give Republicans a majority of as many as 233 seats or as few as 227 seats.

Sorry, no link for today.

There is some great news out of Oklahoma as Democrat Brad Carson continues to surge in the wake of Tom Coburn's unraveling. A new poll from Wilson Research Strategies indicates that Representative Carson has picked up a substantial lead for the first time this year. The poll mirrors an internal poll taken for the Carson campaign.

Over the past three weeks, Carson has increased his support by a whopping 8 points while Coburn's numbers have diminished by 3. Here is the trend:

September 28: Carson 44, Coburn 39
September 21: Carson 41, Coburn 40
September 14: Carson 39, Coburn 37
September 7: Carson 36, Coburn 42

The poll of 500 likely voters taken from September 24 – 26 has a margin of error of +/- 4.4%, so Carson's 5% lead is significant.

Michael Baker writes up the survey in "Carson takes lead over Coburn in poll" in today's issue of the Oklahoman thusly:

Monday's poll is the first time that the Claremore Democrat's advantage has been greater than the margin of error in any polls commissioned by The Oklahoman or NEWS9.

[...]

Just last month, Coburn, of Muskogee, had a 9-point lead over Carson in a poll conducted by the Virginia-based company.

This is great news, and it increasingly appears as though Oklahoma will turn out to be a Democratic takeover come November.

Robert Pear has the scoop in tomorrow morning's edition of the New York Times. His story entitled "Inquiry on Medicare Finds Improper Limits on Choices" has the details about how the Bush Administration enabled various insurers to reap huge profits by overcharging the elderly. Here's the lead:

Federal investigators said Monday that the Bush administration had improperly allowed some private health plans to limit Medicare patients' choice of health care providers, including doctors, nursing homes and home care agencies.

The investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, also said that the private plans had increased out-of-pocket costs for the elderly and had not saved money for the government, contrary to predictions by Medicare officials.

The study, the most comprehensive assessment of a demonstration project that the administration has described as the best hope for Medicare's future, focused on the program's experience with a form of managed care known as preferred provider organizations, the type of health insurance most popular among people under 65.

Medicare is spending $650 to $750 a year more for each beneficiary in such private plans than it would have spent if the same people stayed in traditional Medicare, the investigators said.

While it's disappointing that this is happening, it's hardly surprising that PPOs (the private insurers) are charging more than traditional Medicare, thus leading to insolvency in the fund. As these PPOs often offer worse coverage than traditional Medicare plans, perhaps the President's true motive in passing the Prescription Drug bill that enabled the use of these plans was to hasten the agency's bankruptcy...

I like this:

The folks at Comedy Central were annoyed when Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly kept referring to "The Daily Show" audience as "stoned slackers." So they did a little research. And guess whose audience is more educated?

Viewers of Jon Stewart's show are more likely to have completed four years of college than people who watch "The O'Reilly Factor," according to Nielsen Media Research.

[...]

Comedy Central also touted a recent study by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey, which said young viewers of "The Daily Show" were more likely to answer questions about politics correctly than those who don't.

The best line of the piece, leading me to think that this article was meant as a piece of comedy and maybe not reporting:

Comedy Central had no statistics on how many people watch "The Daily Show" stoned.

Link.

Good news for Kerry in Charlie Cook's new Electoral College scorecard as a number of states move from the "lean Bush" category into the "tossup" category. At this moment, Cook has the race essentially tied with 208 electoral votes in Bush's hands, 207 in Kerry's and a whopping 123 in the undecided column.

On September 10, Bush led 222-207, so it would appear as though Bush has lost some support in key states recently. Nevertheless, both Bush and Kerry have solidified their respective levels of support (Kerry's solid went from 95 to 150, and Bush's solid/lean went from 172 to 208).

Here are the changes in the past two weeks, according to Cook:

• Arizona: Moved from "Lean Bush" to "Likely Bush"
  
• California: Moved from "Likely Kerry" to "Solid Kerry"
  
• Colorado: Moved from "Lean Bush" to "Tossup"
  
• Kentucky: Moved from "Likely Bush" to "Solid Bush"
  
• Missouri: Moved from "Lean Bush" to "Likely Bush"
  
• North Carolina: Moved from "Lean Bush" to "Likely Bush"
  
• Tennessee: Moved from "Likely Bush" to "Solid Bush"
  
• West Virginia: Moved from "Lean Bush" to "Tossup"

Additionally, Cook eyes a trend that has not yet been mentioned in the national media: Bush must defend much more of the "Tossup" column than Kerry; of the 123 Electoral Votes deemed by Cook to be in this category (CO, FL, IA, MN, NV, NH, NM, OH, PA, WV, WI), 70 come from states the President won in 2000 while only 53 come from Gore states. As a result, it would appear as though Bush is actually in a more tenuous situation than the challenger Kerry; what candidate would want to be forced to defend such a large swath of that should be his territory but now is instead undecided?

Overall, I think the key point to take from this Cook piece is that although pundits try to scream at the top of their lungs that John Kerry is finished, in reality the race is not decided by national polls but rather the combination of voting in key swing states. As Cook shows, Bush's lead in these states is far less dramatic (1 Electoral Vote) than you might guess from some of the national polling, so this race is much closer than many think. Coming from the nation's top non-partisan political analyst, that means a lot.

Rasmussen Reports has Bush up by 1.7% today in its three day tracking poll, well within the margin of error. The race today is Bush 47.8, Kerry 46.1.

The CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of likely voters narrowed from a Bush lead of 13% to a Bush lead of 8%. While this is still a substantial lead for the President, the fact is the race is moving in Kerry's direction.

According to the most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll of likely voters, Bush leads 51-45.

I'll try to get you all of the new polling as soon as it comes through.

But a decade later, the fervor of the 1994 “Republican Revolution” has been tempered by a resolve to keep control of the House. GOP leaders are choosing pragmatism over populist zeal on many issues, and are treating the minority as unfairly as they were treated for decades under Democratic rule.

What's more, several Republican leaders, most recently House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, have become snared in ethics scandals similar to those that led to the Democrats' downfall. The record is a reminder that the temptation by the majority party to abuse its status is a bipartisan failing.

Certainly, House Republicans have been true to their word in adopting two-thirds of the 75 policy changes itemized in their contract — from cutting taxes to getting tougher on crime. Yet many of their promised reforms have been watered down. And some of the biggest pledges remain unfulfilled.

Link.

I always hate to link to a Bob Novak column, but his reporting is often decent (even if he is a partisan hack in editorializing). From "Is CIA at war with Bush?" in today's Chicago Sun-Times:

A few hours after George W. Bush dismissed a pessimistic CIA report on Iraq as ''just guessing,'' the analyst who identified himself as its author told a private dinner last week of secret, unheeded warnings years ago about going to war in Iraq. This exchange leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the president of the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency are at war with each other.

Paul R. Pillar, the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, sat down Tuesday night in a large West Coast city with a select group of private citizens. He was not talking off the cuff. Relying on a multi-paged, single-spaced memorandum, Pillar said he and his colleagues concluded early in the Bush administration that military intervention in Iraq would intensify anti-American hostility throughout Islam. This was not from a CIA retiree but an active senior official. (Pillar, no covert operative, is listed openly in the Federal Staff Directory.)

For President Bush to publicly write off a CIA paper as just guessing is without precedent. For the agency to go semi-public is not only unprecedented but shocking. George Tenet's retirement as director of Central Intelligence removed the buffer between president and agency. As the new DCI, Porter Goss inherits an extraordinarily sensitive situation.

From Howard Kurtz's article "Up Next: The News In Red and Blue" tomorrow morning in the Washington Post:

If you were watching the network evening news in June, July and August, you would have seen somewhat favorable coverage of John Kerry -- six out of 10 evaluations were positive -- and somewhat unfavorable coverage of President Bush.

If you were watching Fox News Channel's 6 p.m. newscast, you would have seen about the same coverage of the president. But Kerry's evaluations were negative by a 5 to 1 margin.

That finding, by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, might suggest that some Fox folks have it in for Kerry. Or it might suggest that the broadcast networks are too easy on Kerry, who the group says has gotten the best network coverage of any presidential nominee since it began tracking in 1988. Or that we have entered an era of red media and blue media to match the country's polarization.

Boy is it surprising that Fox News is more biased than the rest of the national media...

As he often does at campaign events, President Bush got his biggest rise out of the crowd in Bangor Thursday afternoon when he said he was simply paraphrasing Senator John F. Kerry's statements.

"Incredibly, this week my opponent said he would prefer the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein to the situation in Iraq today," Bush said at a campaign rally at Bangor International Airport, drawing a round of boos.

There was just one problem: Kerry never said what Bush said he did. In a major address Monday in New York City, where Kerry laid out his opposition to the manner in which Bush invaded Iraq, he was careful to call Hussein "a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell."

"The satisfaction that we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure," Kerry said, blaming what he described as Bush's lack of diplomacy and proper war planning for putting the nation at greater danger.

Rick Klein's piece, "On the stump, the art of distortion", appeared in Sunday's issue of the Boston Globe, and it's a very good read.

Ford Fessenden penned an important article in this morning's New York Times that is a definite must read in this election cycle. Entitled "A Big Increase of New Voters in Swing States", the piece explains that not only are the voter rolls in key states increasing at previously unheard of rates, but moreover that one party in particular is benefitting much more than the other. Fessenden writes this:

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

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

While comparable data could not be obtained for other swing states, similar registration drives have been mounted in them as well, and party officials on both sides say record numbers of new voters are being registered nationwide. This largely hidden but deadly earnest battle is widely believed by campaign professionals and political scientists to be potentially decisive in the presidential election.

Oregon is a prime example of this trend in swing states. Two weeks ago, the Salem Statesman Journal reported that Democrats had bested Republicans in new voters registered by roughly a 2:1 margin, increasing the party's already substantial lead in the state.

The increased Democratic registration in states like Ohio and Oregon isn't the only part of this effort that will surely effect this race. Fessenden has more:

The precise impact of the swell in registration is difficult to predict, as there is no reliable gauge of how many of these new voters will actually vote. Some experts, though, say that the spike has not been accurately captured by political polls and could confound prognostications in closely contested states.

What is clear is that each side has deployed huge numbers of workers and devoted millions of dollars to the effort. Much of it is being directed by civil rights and community groups, as well as soft-money organizations allied with the Democrats. One such Democratic umbrella group, America Votes, says its constituents - labor unions, trial lawyers, environmental groups, community organizations - will spend $300 million on registration and turnout in swing states, a sum that dwarfs the $150 million in public financing the two candidates together will receive for the entire fall campaign.

The registration drives are just the first step in a campaign by each side to get more Americans to vote by using personal contact. As registration winds down, with early October cutoffs in many states, efforts will shift to staying in touch through Election Day with repeated phone calls and visits, and, on Nov. 2, ferrying people to the polls.

The recent opinion polls are most definitely not picking up these new voters--even in their "registered voter" models--and as Fessenden notes, it is unknown whether or not the majority of these people will indeed end up voting. Nevertheless, if these pro-Democratic groups are indeed successful in getting out the vote this November, Bush's political acumen--forged by years under Karl Rove's tutelage--will prove useless against the sheer millions of voters who support his challenger.

From Nancy Benac's AP story "Candidates Look to Avoid Debate Pitfalls":

"Bush debates the way Chris Evert plays tennis — no unforced errors," says Democrat Paul Begala, who played the part of the president in rehearsals with Al Gore for the 2000 debates. "He doesn't get out of his game. He won't try to get into philosophy and nuance and deep thinking."

Where Bush can get into trouble is if he's forced out of his comfort zone, and becomes flustered. Or if his single-mindedness starts to look simple-minded, given the profound uncertainties surrounding Iraq, the war on terrorism and other matters, says Wayne Fields, an expert on political rhetoric at Washington University in St. Louis.

"His strongest quality is also a kind of weakness to be exploited, so you don't know how this is going to play out," said Fields. "If all of a sudden the situation looks more complicated, and Kerry is able to show he can take things on and master them, then this could turn against Bush.

From ABC's Noted Now today:

BUSH EVASIVE WHEN ASKED ABOUT SWIFT BOAT ADS BY O'REILLY:

O'Reilly: "Did Karl Rove know anything about it?"

Bush: "I don't think so."

NBC's David Gregory made a reat point on the Chris Matthews Show on one of the President's few, but perhaps most fatal, debating flaws. Remarking about the exchange in the 2000 primary debate between McCain and Bush in which McCain went right after the Governor for allowing his surrogates to attack his Vietnam service, Gregory explained that Bush becomes both angry and flustered when he is interrupted.

While Bush was able to stay away from this in his debates with Gore later in 2000, if Kerry can cause Bush to get noticeably angry during the debate, the Massachusetts Senator could come away with a resounding victory.

In what is arguably the toughest Senatorial reelection campaign across the country this year, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle is facing up against former Congressman John Thune to represent South Dakota for the next six years. The polls have widely varied over the past months, with Daschle at times holding decent leads and Thune at times barely pulling ahead. The most recent poll, though, shows Daschle in a better situation than he has been in for quite some time.

Jon Walker of the Argus Leader writes up the latest poll commissioned by the paper and KELO-TV thusly:

An opinion poll released today shows Tom Daschle with a 5-point lead in a South Dakota Senate race that observers say remains too close to call and promises more aggressive campaigning by both sides as the election nears.

The phone survey of 800 likely voters - sponsored by the Argus Leader and KELO-TV in Sioux Falls - shows the Democratic incumbent with a 50 to 45 percent lead over Republican challenger John Thune. But the poll also indicates a growing negative opinion toward both candidates. With 5 percent still undecided, and with the poll's margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, South Dakotans can expect the two campaigns to accelerate their efforts to persuade voters and get them to the polls.

[...]

The polling was last Monday through Wednesday, immediately after Thune and Daschle's icy exchange over the war in Iraq on NBC's "Meet the Press." The poll shows Thune's unfavorable score with voters jumping from 23 percent in May to 34 percent last week, and Daschle's rising from 33 to 37 percent.

[...]

Besides his 5-point deficit and the rise of his unfavorable rating, concerns for Thune include results showing 18 percent of Republicans crossing party lines to support Daschle. That compares with 6 percent of Democrats going the opposite direction to back Thune.

Those are not fatal numbers for Thune, and perhaps not even a red flag, because the state has 44,000 more Republicans than Democrats. But they point to an old puzzle for the dominant party in a state that sends mostly Democrats to Congress.

This race is not over, but it looks like Daschle is not in nearly as bad shape as some pundits would have you believe. If Daschle is able to win and the Democrats win four out of the five other competitive races (Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, and Oklahoma), the Democrats would most likely win outright control of the Senate for the first time in a decade.

Per Ruy Teixeira:

Bush leads Kerry 48-44 among nation-wide RV's in a new Time magazine Poll conducted 9/21-23. (Bush was up by 12 among RVs in Time's poll 2 weeks earlier).

For the last three days, President Bush has held a paltry 1 point lead over John Kerry in Rasmussen Reports 3-day tracking polls. With a likely voter sample of 3000 respondents, Rasmussen's poll has a much smaller margin of error than the polling done by large media outlets like Time and the AP. Here's the data from the last three days:

Today: Bush 47.2, Kerry 46.5
Sept 25: Bush 47.9, Kerry 46.3
Sept 24: Bush 47.4, Kerry 46.5

With a MoE of +/- 3.0%, this race should be considered a tie.

Sugar beet farmers in a rural Minnesota district that turned out solidly for President Bush in 2000 are having second thoughts about his re-election now that the administration is supporting a trade agreement they see as a threat.

"That is overshadowing everything," said Diane Ista, a community activist and longtime Democrat who grows sugar beets on a farm in Norman County.

That could make the difference in the state Bush lost to Democratic candidate Al Gore (news - web sites) by fewer than 60,000 votes. Winning Minnesota's 10 electoral votes this year depends on turning out the sort of support Bush received in the 7th District, which the Republican carried by nearly 15 percentage points.

Kevin Nelson, a wheat and sugar beet farmer near Glyndon, donated money to the first Bush campaign. Now, the president has "lost all my support," Nelson said.

"I was unsure of him back then, too," Nelson said. "He has never been very strong on agriculture in general."

Link.

This story speaks to a lot of the rural anger that the Bush Administration faces today, despite the fact that the mainstream media has decided to ignore this issue. Many farmers, unhappy with the President's free trade policies, could swing key midwestern farming states plus North Carolina into the Democratic column this year, and thus genuinely effect the election.

I am not certain how this all will play out, but from what we saw in Louisana in December 2002 (when Senator Mary Landrieu [D] used the President's support for Mexican sugar to ensure her reelection), local agricultural issues can trump national themes in key races, and as a result, we could see the President losing key swing states come November even if he appears to be leading in the national polls.

In observance of Yom Kippur, I won't be posting tonight or tomorrow. Talk to you after then.

Feel free to use this as an open thread in the "comments" section if you want.

Rasmussen Reports has a new poll out from Oregon that has a lot of good news for Democrat John Kerry. The poll of 500 likely voters, conducted between September 8 and 21 with a margin of error of +/- 4.5%, shows Kerry with a commanding 51-43 lead over President Bush. In Rasmussen's previous poll of the state taken before the Republican National Convention, Kerry led by a similar 53-43 margin. Rasmussen explains further findings from the poll:

Just 46% of Oregon voters have a favorable opinion of the President. Fifty-three percent (53%) have a favorable opinion of Senator Kerry.

In Oregon, 45% of all voters Approve of the way President Bush is performing his job. That's down from earlier surveys and below his national Job Approval rating).

The results of this poll are very similar to other recent polling in the state. Here is a brief rundown:

• Rasmussen (9/8-21; 500 respondents): Kerry 51, Bush 43
  
• SurveyUSA* (9/19-21; 747 respondents): 52-43
  
• Zogby (9/13-17; 787 respondents): Kerry 53.9, Bush 41.9
  
• Research 2000 (9/13-16; 600 respondents): Kerry 51, Bush 44
  
• ARG** (9/10-13; 600 respondents): Kerry 47, Bush 45

* - Reweighted to reflect the real Oregon electorate.
** - Poll included Ralph Nader, who is no longer on the ballot.

The truth that becomes very apparent when looking at these polls is that John Kerry is over 50% in Oregon, and that's all that really matters. You might look to see progressive 527 organizations moving out of the state soon--like they did Michigan--to redeploy staff and reallocate funds to closer swing states. As I argued many times in my "Oregon: No Longer a Battleground State" series, while the Beaver state was close in 2000, it should be an easy win for Kerry in November and he'd be better served by paying attention to Ohio and Wisconsin (among other states) than Oregon.

Jerome over at MyDD.com found this ad, and it's just great.

New Kerry Ad Questions Bush Right Track, Wrong Tack Comments - Continuing to point out that George W. Bush's rhetoric on Iraq does not match reality, the Kerry-Edwards campaign will take to the airwaves with the new ad - "Right Track." The ad uses footage of the president's right track/wrong track comments in the Rose Garden yesterday.

Bush: "I saw a poll that said the right track wrong track in Iraq was better than here in America."

Narrator: "The right track? Americans are being kidnapped, held hostage, even beheaded. Over a thousand American soldiers have died. And George Bush has no plan to get us out of Iraq. John Kerry does. The Kerry solution: Allies share the burden. Train Iraqis to protect themselves. John Kerry. A new direction in Iraq."

Bush 47.4
Kerry 46.5

This is well within the margin of error, so in reality the poll shows a tied race. Here's what they write:

It's been more than a month since John Kerry held a lead in the Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll, but the challenger has moved within a point of the President.

The latest numbers show President George W. Bush with 47% of the vote and Senator John Kerry with 46%. The Tracking Poll is updated daily by noon Eastern.

For the previous eight days, and most of September, Bush has held a 2-4 point lead in the Tracking Poll. It will take a couple of days to determine if today's results reflect a tightening of the race or are merely statistical noise.

Link.

"Two million people who fought in World War II and lived through the Great Depression die every year. That generation has been an exception in US history, because it has defended anti-American policies. They voted for the creation of the welfare state and for obligatory military service. They are the Democratic base, and they are dying."

--Grover Norquist, the conservative Club for Growth.

Link.

Former U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield is recovering from a head injury that he suffered while visiting family on the East Coast.

Hatfield, 82, was undergoing tests Thursday at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, where he was transferred after a fall Wednesday night at his daughter’s home in Maryland.

He was in intensive care and undergoing a CAT scan, results from which were incomplete Thursday.

Gerry Frank of Salem, Hatfield’s longtime associate and former chief of staff, described the procedure as “precautionary observation.”

“Doctors have reported that his recovery appears to be proceeding normally,” Frank said in a statement. “He is expected to remain in the hospital for at least the next few days. The Hatfield family appreciates the prayers and good wishes of all.”

Well-wishers are advised to send messages in care of Mark Hatfield’s office in Portland: Suite 1600 Pioneer Tower, 888 SW Fifth Ave., Portland OR 97204, or P.O. Box 8639, Portland OR 97207.

Among Registered Voters

Bush 47
Kerry 45
Nader 3
Undecided 5

This survey was conducted from September 20th through September 22nd, 2004. 1,216 adults 18 years of age or older within the continental United States were interviewed by telephone. Telephone numbers were selected based upon a list of telephone exchanges from throughout the nation. The exchanges were selected to ensure that each region was represented in proportion to its population. The results of the entire survey are statistically significant at ±3%. There are 929 registered voters and 630 likely voters. The results for these sub-samples are statistically significant at ±3.5% and ±4%, respectively. The margin for error increases for cross-tabulations.

This evening I attended a talk by Patrick Guerriero, the Executive Director of the Log Cabin Republicans, a GOP organization devoted to forwarding gay and lesbian rights. Mr. Guerriero, whose group made history by not endorsing the Republican candidate for President for the first time in its history, spoke at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. After his speech, I had the opportunity to speak with him, and the following is a transcription of my exclusive interview with him.

Jonathan Singer: Mr. Guerriero, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.
Patrick Guerriero: My pleasure.
JS: As I'm a blogger interviewing you, let me ask you about the outing of gay members of Congress and congressional staffers by a blog. What are your feelings on this?
PG: I disagree with the outing campaign because it's counterproductive. I do oppose those who are closeted but support or sponsored the Federal Marriage Amendment, like Ed Schrock of Virginia.
JS: How about less vocal closeted members of Congress? There is a move to forcibly out the Congressman for this district, David Dreier.
PG: Again, I strongly disagree with the outing campaign. From what I understand, David Dreier is planning on voting against the amendment.
JS: In November or December, Josh Marshall of The Hill and Talkingpointsmemo.com suggested that when the President's approval rating dipped below a certain point--I think it was 45%--he would come out in support of the Federal Marriage Amendment. Not long after his approval ratings hit this mark, he indeed did come out for the Amendment. What do you make of this?
PG: I believe this was a pure political and strategic move to affect key voters in the six swing states I mentioned earlier (Iowa, Missouri, the Florida panhandle, West Virginia, etc.). This was based on Karl Rove's polling that showed that if the President stressed social issues in these states, he could move voters into his column.
JS: Lincoln Chafee this past week indicated that he might not vote for the President, in which case he would write in another Republican. Is this also where you stand?
PG: Let me say first that I couldn't vote for John Kerry. He is against gay marriage and for amendments banning gay marriage in states like Missouri. He also campaigned against me in the past in Massachusetts. I think the reality is that gay conservatives are doing a lot of soul searching right now--
JS: What about voting for a third party candidate like Michael Badnarik (the Libertarian nominee)?
PG: We don't advocate voting for any other parties.
JS: I've been writing a lot on my blog lately about the decline of the Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party. Where does your organization fit into this?
PG: There will be a Rockefeller Republican resurrection when we have a Republican nominee who won't use social issues to divide Americans. That will not happen sooner, though.
JS: I have a question about my Senator Gordon Smith and other members of congress in general. Senator Smith originally ran for Senate with the support of the anti-gay group Oregon Citizens Alliance, but has since changed his views on Hate Crimes legislation, for example. After his reelection in 2002 with the support of the gay community, however, he has moved back to the right and supported the Federal Marriage Amendment. How does your organization feel about this?
PG: Gordon Smith, like many, is struggling with the issue of Gay Marriage--he is a very religious man, and I've spoken personally with him about this--but let me say that the person who we are most frustrated with on this issue is President Bush. That having been said, there is anxiety and anger about this, and we are disappointed that he didn't come out forcefully against the amendment. Nevertheless, he has been the leader in Congress in the fight to extend Hate Crimes legislation to the homosexual community, and for that we are very appreciative.
JS: Now for a final question. Should John Kerry win the Presidency, some insiders say Congressman Barney Frank might run for Kerry's Senate seat. Where would you stand on his candidacy?
PG: I'm friendly with Barney Frank, but our organization only supports Republican candidates.
JS: Mr. Guerriero, thank you so much for your time.
PG: You're welcome.

Kerry 49, Bush 49

Link.

Patrick Guerriero, the head of the Log Cabin Republicans, is speaking later tonight at Claremont McKenna College, and I'll be on hand to hear what he has to say. For those who have missed the story, Guerriero's Log Cabin Republicans--a group of conservative gay and lesbian voters--have withheld their endorsement from George W. Bush, the first time in their history they have not endorsed the GOP candidate.

The talk should be interesting and I'll write it up when I get back.

It's tied.

Among Likely Voters

(Two way, three way)
Bush 45, 46
Kerry 43, 42
Nader -, 1
Undec. 12, 13

Is this real?

Evidently the Washington Post seems to think so.

But if Kerry has been sacked for Lambert Field, it was Democrats' turn to chortle Thursday when Bush gave a speech at Dick Putz Field in St. Cloud, Minn.

Link.

Although some Americans feel the Economist has a slight bias to the right, at least in its editorials, I find it to be one of the world's premier publications that is generally fair in both its news and opinion pieces. This week, their American columnist "Lexington" penned an article entitled "The comeback Kerry" which aptly explains the state of the race today (in my humble opinion).

IN SEPTEMBER 1980 Ronald Reagan was stuck behind Jimmy Carter in the polls. His campaign was in such a shambles that he had to sack his campaign manager. And he was dogged by the belief that he was unelectable. All that changed with a single debate—and Reagan crushed Mr Carter by more than 8m votes.

John Kerry is no Ronald Reagan (though one supporter recently introduced him twice as John Kennedy). But he still has time to turn his campaign round. It is true that the Republicans have the wind in their sails at the moment (New Jersey is now considered a swing state, for heaven's sake). But swing voters seem in an unusually volatile mood. Mr Kerry still has a lot going for him—particularly the energy of a Democratic rank-and-file that will do anything to get George Bush out of the White House, and widespread worries about where the country is heading.

How can Mr Kerry translate all this energy and anxiety into victory? This week the Kerry camp produced a surprising answer: focus on Iraq. Mr Kerry had originally planned to spend the autumn talking about the economy and health care. But now—thanks to the influence of a group of Clintonites who have been drafted into his campaign—he has put Iraq at the centre of his campaign. Mr Kerry's pivotal speech in New York this week, ripping into Mr Bush's Iraq foray, may prove similar to Hubert Humphrey's denunciation of the Vietnam war in late September 1968, which narrowed the gap with Richard Nixon.

Lexington says that although Kerry has appeared to be somewhat successful using this meme, it might be difficult for the Senator to keep it up. He opines that if Kerry is forced once again to defend his votes on Iraq (for the war, against the supplemental bill), then this stategy will fail.

Lexington offers up another line of attack that Kerry could use perhaps more effectively while still distancing himself from the President on the issue of Iraq: mismanagement.

...it surely offers Mr Kerry a better line of attack.

First, it is a far less contentious charge to prove. By any reasonable standard, the White House has a mind-boggling record of incompetence in Iraq, from the lack of post-war planning to the disgrace of Abu Ghraib. Mr Kerry can tap into the sense that Mr Bush is out of touch with what is happening on the ground, especially in Iraq's no-go areas. The more Mr Bush repeats his mantra about the march of liberty, the more he risks sounding like a Texan version of “Comical Ali”, the Iraqi propaganda minister who declared that the infidel dogs were in retreat even as American troops rolled into Baghdad.

The article has much more than this, and it's a good read. Overall, Lexington feels that this race is very much winnable for Kerry, and on that point I would have to agree with him. If you're interested, it's one of the free articles offered on the Economist's website this week.

In this morning's issue of the Oregonian, longtime Oregon Republican Senator Mark Hatfield endorsed President Bush. This is what he had to say:

As a young Navy officer in World War II, I was one of the first Americans to see Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945. That experience lives with me today, and it helped to shape the view I held during my public service career: a view that war is wrong in nearly every circumstance.

As Oregon's governor, I was the only governor in the nation who refused to sign a statement supporting President Johnson's Vietnam War policy.

As a senator, I joined with Sen. George McGovern in an unsuccessful effort to end that war. I was the only senator who voted against both the Democrat and Republican resolutions authorizing the use of force in the 1991 Gulf War.

In my final years in the Senate, I opposed President Clinton's decision to send American troops to Bosnia.

During my 30 years in the Senate, I never once voted in favor of a military appropriations bill.

I know that this record will cause many to wonder why I am such a strong supporter of President Bush and his policy in Iraq. My support is based on the fact that our world changed on Sept. 11, 2001, a day on which we lost more American lives than we did in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

This move was not entirely unexpected for me as he indicated as much when I had lunch with him last summer, and I completely respect his stance in this race. Nevertheless, I am somewhat disappointed in his decision given the fact that he is one of my politial idols in the state of Oregon and his words and actions mean so much in this state.

I just found a poll of Oregon that was released two days ago in the Portland Tribune, a semi-weekly that has some great writing. The poll is a bit old, but it nonetheless has a lot of good information I haven't before seen in other polls (other down-ticket races, for example). Here it is, nonetheless:

The Tribune/KOIN poll results reported here were compiled from Sept. 13 to Sept. 16. Pollsters interviewed by telephone 600 likely voters statewide, who vote regularly in state elections.

President: John Kerry (D) 51, George Bush (R) 44
Senate: Ron Wyden (D) 58, Al King (R) 31
Secretary of State: Bill Bradbury (D) 46, Betsy Close (R) 35
State Treasurer: Randall Edwards (D) 51, Jeff Caton (R) 23
Attorney General: Hardy Myers (D) 44, Paul Connolly (R) 30

There are extensive internals for each of these races, and there is also polling for a spate of ballot initiatives that Oregon voters will soon face (it looks like the Gay Marriage ban might indeed pass).

The most important thing to note in this poll is that it appears as though the Democrats will continue to dominate the executive branch of the Oregon state government--they currently hold all statewide offices (other than one Senate seat). Although I'd like to see Myers and especially Bradbury up over 50%, they both nonetheless have pretty substantial leads right now, so I'm not to worried.

Per CBS' Washington Wrap:

Although Republicans may still have the upper hand in the 2004 Senate race, with five Southern Democrats retiring and the election map tilting in their favor, the Democrats appear to be running surprisingly strong campaigns, especially in the South, reports the Wall Street Journal. Democrats are doing better than expected in North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida. Even states usually considered to be Republican strongholds like Colorado, Alaska and Okalahoma, are not out of bounds for the Democrats who are doing notably well in many polls. The Republicans seem only to have a sure hold on one seat: Georgia, where Democrat Sen. Zell Miller is retiring.

In an attempt to boost morale and soothe anxiety about new developments in the campaign, Sen. John Kerry sent campaign chairwoman Mary Beth Cahill to Capital Hill on Tuesday to meet with Democrats. Although numerous Democratic senators expressed post-convention concern, there seemed to be renewed positive energy, The Hill reports. "I feel they're getting it straight," said retiring Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-SC. "Now they're finally beginning to fight."

In other Senate news, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee acquired new strength in the form of a $1 million donation from Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. Schumer's gift came from his $22 million campaign account, which was built over the last six years. Schumer donated $500,000 two week ago to other Democrats' efforts, a large portion of which went to the DSCC with the remainder going to state parties. On Tuesday, Schumer pledged another $500,000 directly to the DSCC, bringing his total to $1 million, Roll Call reports.

In a post earlier this afternoon, I disagreed with SurveyUSA's Republican bias in its poll of Oregon (I reweighted the poll using registration numbers from an Oregon pollster, Bob Moore, to come up with a Kerry lead of 50.81% to 45.3% for Bush in the state). Chris over at MyDD.com finds that if you use the exit polling from the 2000 election to find out the proportion of Democratic and Republican voters in the state and plug them into the SurveyUSA poll, the results are even more staggering: he finds a Kerry lead of 52-43, which is more in line with Zogby's poll of the state.

John F. Harris gets space on the front page of tomorrow mornings issue of the Washington Post for this piece:

Despite Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label

One of this year's candidates for president, to hear his opposition tell it, has a long history of policy reversals and rhetorical about-faces -- a zigzag trail that proves his willingness to massage positions and even switch sides when politically convenient.

The flip-flopper, Democrats say, is President Bush. Over the past four years, he abandoned positions on issues such as how to regulate air pollution or whether states should be allowed to sanction same-sex marriage. He changed his mind about the merits of creating the Homeland Security Department, and made a major exception to his stance on free trade by agreeing to tariffs on steel. After resisting, the president yielded to pressure in supporting an independent commission to study policy failures preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bush did the same with questions about whether he would allow his national security adviser to testify, or whether he would answer commissioners' questions for only an hour, or for as long they needed.

Harris continues by showing that the Democrats have lost their media battle to paint the President as a flip-flopper, though they have not yet given up.

For a while this summer, Kerry's team tried to answer Bush's charge that Kerry is equivocating and inconstant by alleging that Bush is just as much or more so. But lately the campaign has laid off this line of argument after concluding it was ineffective against an opponent who surveys show is seen by a majority of voters as decisive, even to the point of stubbornness.

"When it comes to shifting positions, he can shift with the best," Kerry spokesman Joe Lockhart said of Bush. "We are prosecuting a different case. We are not arguing that he's a flip-flopper -- he is -- but that the policy choices he has taken have failed miserably."

There's a lot more in the article, so I definitely suggest you read it (because this cursory introduction does not give it due justice).

Oregonlive.com runs the whole Charles Beggs AP story on Ralph Nader's disqualification from the Oregon ballot.

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Ralph Nader will not appear on the Oregon presidential ballot, reversing a lower court.

The high court unanimously upheld a ruling by Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, who determined that errors on petition sheets left the independent presidential candidate 218 signatures short of the 15,306 needed to put him on the Nov. 2 ballot.

[...]

Nader said the decision would be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

[...]

Oregon voters will have five choices for president if Nader remains off the ballot.

Besides Kerry and President Bush, candidates qualifying earlier were David Cobb, Pacific Green Party; Michael Anthony Peroutka, Constitution Party, and Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian Party.

Oregon is now basically a shoo-in for Kerry.

Now to the man at the center of this story.

If there is one Oregon politician with whom I feel a real connection it is Bill Bradbury. When I volunteered in my first campaign at the age of 16 (the Oregon coordinated campaign for Al Gore), Bradbury was running for Secretary of State and I got a number of opportunities to speak with him.

After he was elected for his first full term, the Republicans attempted a Texas-sized gerrymandering to steal as many seats in the state legislature and the US Congress as possible. Then-Governor John Kitzhaber vetoed each plan so the courts left it up to Bradbury to redraw the districts, and he was very favorable to the Democrats (though much more reasonable than the Republicans. As a result of his work, Oregon sends four Democrats and one Republican to the House, and the Democrats have a chance to retake the Oregon legislature for the first time in nearly a decade.

At Ron Wyden's biennial campaign bash last summer at the Rose Garden, I got to speak with Bradbury again, this time on a wider number of issues such as his 2002 run for Senate against Gordon Smith and all of the great work he does for the state. This summer, I got to speak with him again at David Wu's annual event (I even passed on the link Basie! to him).

Bill Bradbury is a truly classy guy and one of the nicest men you'll ever meet. All Oregonians are lucky to have him as Secretary of State, and I feel honored just to have had the time to speak with him so many times.

(note--this originally appeared in this post when Nader was first disqualified for the Oregon ballot at the beginning of the month)

Per the New York Times:

In what senators from both parties called a potential turning point for American intelligence agencies, the Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to confirm the nomination of Representative Porter J. Goss of Florida as director of central intelligence.

Twenty-eight Democrats joined 49 Republicans in voting in favor of Mr. Goss's confirmation, which was approved 77 to 17.

My Senator, Ron Wyden, was one of the 17 who stood up against the partisan hack, Goss. Good job, Ron! (If he had a campaign website, I'd direct you to it now)

This is what SurveyUSA has to say about the state of Oregon:

• In an election for President in Oregon today, George W Bush & John Kerry tie, according to SurveyUSA poll of 747 likely voters, conducted 9/19 + 9/20 + 9/21.
  
• It's Bush 48%, Kerry 47% today, a statistical tie. Bush holds 89% of republican base. Kerry holds 88% of Democrat base. Independents break 4:3 for Kerry.
  
• Those who have completed graduate school support Kerry 3:2. All other education levels support Bush. Military households support Bush by 9. Non-military HH's support Kerry by 9. Those who attend church regularly support Bush 2:1. Those who attend church rarely support Kerry 2:1. Kerry up 6 in greater Portland. Bush up 13 in rest of Oregon. Bush up 12 pts in suburban OR, up 22 in rural OR, down 32 in urban OR.

I know for a fact that registered Democrats in the state of Oregon far outnumber their GOP counterparts, and the margin is has vastly widened as of late. To quantify this, so you don't just think I made this up, Oregon pollster Bob Moore reported the day after the Oregon primary (May 19, before this spate of new Democratic voters got registered) that the partisan makeup of the state breaks down thusly: 39% Democrat, 36% Republican, and 25% unaffiliated.

Now when you compare these real numbers--real data, not polling--with this current SurveyUSA poll, things just don't add up right. Kerry and Bush are statistically the same among their parties (89-9 for the President, 88-9 for the Senator), so right there Kerry should have a slight lead of two to three points just from the partisan makeup of the state. Next, when you look at the independent/other category, Kerry has a massive lead of 53-39 over Bush, indicating that his lead in the state is acually quite significant.

When you actually take these percentages and put them up against the actual Oregon electorate rather than the theoretical one created by SurveyUSA, here's what you get: Kerry 50.81%, Bush 45.3%, a decent lead for the challenger in this state. Although this margin is not as large as double-digit Kerry lead in the latest Zogby poll in the state, it still indicates that John Kerry is doing quite well in the Northwest corner of the nation.

If these numbers don't convince you, I have a site dedicated to Oregon politics that finds that Kerry should win given history, historical trends, fundraising in the state, among other things. If you don't believe me, listen to Tim Hibbitts--one of the state's top non-partisan political analysts--who has all but predicted a Kerry win. Either way, I think it's very clear that John Kerry will win Oregon in 2004.

This is not what the President wanted to see today, but his "bounce" from the convention is statistically insignificant. As ABC's The Note wrote this morning:

There's the fact that two of America's leading news organizations (who poll together) are about to release some horserace numbers that are going to suggest a tight race and tease out the "Kerry closes the gap with momentum" storyline for which the press hungers. (As Joe Lockhart would say, EVERYONE in Washington knows about these poll numbers … )

Now we have confirmation from the "two of America's leading news organizations" that Bush's lead is indeed within the margin of error. Mark Murray over at NBC writes thusly:

The poll, conducted by Hart/McInturff, shows Bush receiving support from 48 percent of registered voters, Kerry getting 45 percent, and Nader getting 2 percent. Among likely voters (defined as those expressing high interest in the November election, who represent 78 percent of the survey), Bush holds a four-point lead over Kerry, 50 percent to 46 percent.

"The difference between those couple of points and being in a dead-even race is modest," said GOP pollster Bill McInturff. "This is not a difficult race [for Kerry] to get quickly back to being functionally tied."

In fact, the results among registered voters are virtually identical to the results from past NBC/Wall Street Journal polls — even though many experts claim that Bush had a resoundingly successful convention, and noted that Kerry (dogged by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who attacked his Vietnam record, and Democrats who questioned whether his campaign had a concrete message) had a dreadful August.

In the last poll, which was released just days before the Republican convention, Bush held a 47-45 percent lead over Kerry, a result unchanged from the survey in July. Moreover, June's poll had Bush leading 45 percent to 44 percent; May's had him up 46-42; and March's had him leading 46-43.

This cannot make Karl Rove too happy; in a poll in which the President has never trailed all year the President's lead today--perhaps at the peak of his post election bounce--is within the margin of error, thus statistically insignificant. In fact, it is similar to the margin by which he lead Al Gore in the days before the election four years ago, though Gore went on to win the popular vote by more than 500,000 votes.

Now, I'd like to hear that "Kerry closes the gap with momentum" meme that The Note talked about this morning...

MSNBC has a new political site in addition to Hardblogger that's worth checking out. Hardball's Horserace show, which airs each Friday, covers state by state campaigning by the candidates, ads, and other campaign related information, and now they have an interactive website (http://horserace.msnbc.com) which seems pretty usable. Check it out, if you're interested.

Check this out! (Real player reqd.)

The David Wu for Congress Campaign today began airing a groundbreaking new television ad in which Congressman David Wu leaps and bungee jumps from a bridge.

The ad uses action and humor to highlight a crucial difference between Congressman David Wu and his conservative opponent, Goli Ameri, on the issue of Social Security.

Congressman Wu supports protecting Social Security and opposes any effort to privatize the program. Goli Ameri and George Bush both advocate privatizing Social Security.

Privatization will rip a trillion dollar hole in the Social Security program, reducing benefits and jeopardizing the long-term solvency of the program.

hello:

i've been reading your blog for a while and i want to let you know about a site i have set up. here's the link:

http://www.stopbushpostcards.com/

in sum, we are selling postcards based upon nyc graffiti - they're very cool. our goal is to raise money for the dems and to remind people to get out and vote. and of course to let george know how we feel.

we have set up a day, an event, for everybody to mail their cards to the white house. the response has been great! and we've gotten some large bulk orders in the last couple days.

if you like what we are doing, perhaps you can mention this on your blog.

thanks for your help. eric

Happy to pass it on.

Chris Bowers at MyDD.com has the scoop on a recently released survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center showing that viewers of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are far more knowledgeable about politics than the general population. Here's what the National Annenberg Election Survey shows:

Polling conducted between July 15 and September 19 among 19,013 adults showed that on a six-item political knowledge test people who did not watch any late-night comedy programs in the past week answered 2.62 items correctly, while viewers of Letterman answered 2.91, viewers of Leno answered 2.95, and viewers of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart answered 3.59 items correctly. That meant there was a difference of 16 percentage points between Daily Show viewers and people who did not watch any latenight programming.

Further, they have this to say about the show:

“People who watch The Daily Show are more interested in the presidential campaign, more educated, younger, and more liberal than the average American or than Leno or Letterman viewers,” said Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, a senior analyst at the Annenberg Public Policy Center , who conducted the research for this report. “However, these factors do not explain the difference in levels of campaign knowledge between people who watch The Daily Show and people who do not. In fact, Daily Show viewershave higher campaign knowledge than national news viewers and newspaper readers - even when education, party identification, following politics, watching cable news,receiving campaign information online, age, and gender are taken into consideration.”

[...]

“In recent years,” Young said, “traditional journalists have been voicing increasing concern that if young people are receiving political information from late-night comedy shows like The Daily Show, they may not be adequately informed on the issues of the day. This data suggests that these fears may be unsubstantiated. We find no differences in campaign knowledge between young people who watch Leno and Letterman –
programs with a lot of political humor in their opening monologues -- and those who do not watch late-night. But when looking at young people who watch The Daily Show, we find they score higher on campaign knowledge than young people who do not watch the show, even when education, following politics, party identification, gender, viewing network news, reading the newspaper, watching cable news and getting campaign
information on-line are taken into account.”

During the mid-July to mid-September time period included in these analyses, Daily Show host Jon Stewart interviewed such political figures as Senator John Kerry, Senator John McCain, Former President Bill Clinton, Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie, and White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett. In addition to the interviews, The Daily Show’s programs dealt with political news and issues of the day, from “Mess O’Potamia” (ongoing coverage of the Iraq War), to the controversial anti-Kerry swift boat advertisements, to the value of “objectivity” in news reporting.

This should come as no suprise to anyone who is an avid viewer of the program. It assumes a high level of political understanding among its vieweship and thus is not forced to make obvious one-liners but is instead able to delve deeper into the issues.

Last night, for example, "Senior Media Analyst" Steven Colbert opined that the "commander-in-chief" of CBS News should be fired for hastily using falsified documents as the basis of his story--that they now "occupy" the story, etc. etc. (a dig at the comparisons between the media's coverage of "Rathergate" and Bush's use of bad intelligence to go to war).

Later, a segment ran on the story of John Kerry saving then-Republican Senator Chic Hecht's life on Capitol Hill. The Daily Show reporter dealt with the story just as the media handled the swiftvet controversy, giving equal time to each side, then concluding that we don't really know if Kerry saved Hecht's life. It was satire at its best, and one of the harshest media rebukes I've seen in a while.

The fact is that The Daily Show is the best news show on television, and it's no coincidence that its viewers are simply more politically knowledgeable than any other segment of the population cited in this survey. Kudos to Jon Stewart!

Here's the transcript, which is quite funny. Not as funny as last night's episode of The Daily Show, but funny nonetheless.

Stop getting into arguments with the Lyndon LaRouche supporters that sporadically mill about Claremont...

This week's Economist/You Gov poll has just come out and it contains a lot of good news for John Kerry. The poll was conducted September 20-22, with 2107 respondents ("Registered to vote": 1792, "Will definitely vote": 1660), and the MoE is +/- 2%.

Suppose the election for President were being held TODAY. Who would you vote for? George W. Bush, the Republican; John F Kerry, the Democrat; Ralph Nader, an independent candidate, or someone else?

Total; Def to vote (Last week, Two Weeks ago)
George Bush 45% (46, 46); 46% (48, 47)
John Kerry 46% (45, 45); 47% (46, 46)
Ralph Nader 1% (1, 1); 1% (1, 1)
Someone else 3% 2%
Would not vote 0% 0%
Don't know 5% 4%

As of now, what do you think you are most likely to end up doing on November 2?

(Total, Def to vote)
George W Bush 46% 48%
John F Kerry 47% 48%
Ralph Nader 1% 1%
Someone else 4% 3%
Not vote at all 2% 0%

In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?

(Total, Def to vote)
Satisfied 36% 40%
Dissatisfied 58% 57%
Don't know 5% 4%

Do you approve or disapprove of the way President George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

(Total, Def to vote)
Approve 42% 45%
Disapprove 53% 53%
Don't know 5% 3%

After there was essentially no movement in the polls in for two weeks, the results flipped this week from last as John Kerry now holds a small, but insignificant lead in the polls. As a result, the Economist poll thus shows that not only is Bush not pulling away--as some polls might indicate--he is actually trailing (though within the margin of error). Either way, this poll indicates a tie rather than a substantial Bush lead, which is found is some heavily skewed surveys (like the one from Gallup).

Additionally, as I wrote last week, Bush received a paltry bounce from the Republican National Convention; it was minimal at most, and in fact smaller than Kerry's bounce, according to the Economist's polling. The fact that there has been this small of a movement might in fact bode well for Kerry.

USAToday.com has this awesome pictorial.

Interesting article from Andrea Stone in this morning's USA Today entitled "Democrats polish their positions in bid to regain House." It reads thusly:

Faced with an uphill battle to win back the majority they lost a decade ago and worried that the public doesn't know where they stand, House Democrats Wednesday will unveil a platform of six "core values" they hope will give voters a reason to support them in November.

The New Partnership for America's Future is "our pledge to the American people addressing their aspirations," says House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. She promises "a drumbeat" by House Democrats about their party's values on national security, prosperity, fairness, opportunity, community and accountability.

The statement of principles, designed to fit on a pocket card that candidates can carry with them, reiterates familiar Democratic positions. There are no new initiatives or specific legislation. Instead, the plan lays out goals such as creating 10 million new jobs, assuring health care for all children, making college tuition tax deductible and ending deficit spending.

[...]

They learned that lesson from House Republicans, who ended 40 years of Democratic rule a decade ago by unveiling their "Contract with America," a detailed blueprint for GOP action. Minutes after today's Democratic announcement on the same west-front steps of the Capitol where Republicans introduced the contract, GOP leaders will hold their own news conference to "celebrate a decade in the majority," Pryce says.

I think the Dems still have a shot at retaking the House, even if it's pretty slim.

Here's what the American Research group has to say:

• George W. Bush is at 47% and John Kerry is at 46% in the weighted national popular vote.
  
• Bush leads outside the margin of error in 17 states with 133 electoral votes.
  
• Kerry leads outside the margin of error in 10 states with 132 electoral votes.
  
• Bush has any lead in 29 states with 253 electoral votes.
  
• Kerry has any lead in 20 states with 270 electoral votes.
  
• Bush and Kerry are tied in Wisconsin and West Virginia.
  
• Bush needs to defend small leads in 5 states - Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Ohio.
  
• Kerry needs to defend small leads in 5 states - Maine, Florida, Minnesota, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.
  
• Among men nationwide, 51% say they would vote for Bush and 42% say they would vote for Kerry.
  
• Among women nationwide, 42% say they would vote for Bush and 50% say they would vote for Kerry.

Details from each state here.

The Dallas Morning News has a much more in-depth scoop than anything I've yet seen on the probe of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's political action committee, though the Washington Post and the New York Times both run major pieces on the developing story. In tomorrow's issue of the Morning News, Michelle Mittelstadt writes a story entitled "Indictments of associates may turn up heat on DeLay" that predicts substantial consequences for the Representative (R-TX) shouls his associates not be fully exonerated. She leads with this:

The indictment of three associates of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay complicates the powerful Texan's political future and could breathe new life into a slow-moving ethics complaint against him, analysts said Tuesday.

The Sugar Land Republican is not named in the flurry of indictments returned by an Austin grand jury. Instead, the case focuses on three fund-raisers close to him and eight corporations that contributed to a political action committee he founded.

"This is not good news for DeLay," political analyst Norm Ornstein said.

There's more.

"Obviously it's critical for these individuals to be exonerated if DeLay ever is to be speaker of the House," said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist. "The Republican caucus will never promote DeLay if this is hanging over his head. It will hurt him even in hanging onto his current position if these people are convicted."

It looks like the media might just be looking at this story, after all.

SurveyUSA has just finished polling in New York and Rhode Island and here are the results:

New York

• In an election for president in New York state today, John Kerry defeats George W Bush 55% to 39%, according to SurveyUSA poll of 582 likely voters 9/18 + 9/19 + 9/20.
  
• Kerry leads 3:1 in NYC. Bush leads by 4 in NYC suburbs. The two tie upstate.
  
• Kerry leads by 43 in urban areas. Bush leads by 7 in suburban NY, by 12 in rural NY.
  
• Bush leads by 2 among whites, trails 7:2 among Hispanics, trails 17:1 among blacks.
  
• Kerry leads by 32 pts among youngest voters, but leads by only 2 among oldest voters.
  
• Bush holds 80% of GOP base; 17% cross-over to vote Kerry. Kerry holds 81% of Democrat base; 13% cross-over to vote Bush. Independents break 3:2 for Kerry.

Rhode Island

• In an election for president in Rhode Island today, John Kerry defeats George W Bush 55% to 37%, according to SurveyUSA poll of 705 likely voters conducted 9/18 - 9/20.
  
• Though Kerry leads in Rhode Island by 18, he is running 11 pts behind Al Gore, who carried the state in 2000 by 29 pts.
  
• Conservatives & pro-life voters back Bush. But all other demographic groups back Kerry, including: men & women, young & old, whites & non-whites, most educated & least educated, union & non-union, military & non-military, religious & less religious, affluent & less affluent, urban & suburban. 12% of Republicans cross-over to Kerry; 9% of Democrats cross-over to Bush. Indys break 8:7 for Kerry.

Former House Speaker Tip O'Neill (D-MA) always called Social Security the "third rail" of American politics--any politician who dare touch it would be electrocuted like one touching the third rail of a subway track (which carries the electricity to the trains). O'Neill made great use of the tactic of attacking any rival politician who attempted to take money away from Social Security, at times even being able to thwart the great communicator himself, President Reagan.

It appears as though John Kerry has taken a page out of O'Neill's playbook as he gets set to pound away at the President on this "third rail" issue. Jonathan Weisman writes on page two of tomorrow morning's Washington Post under the headline "The Politics of Social Security" thusly:

President Bush's push to create individual investment accounts in the Social Security system would hand financial services firms a windfall totaling $940 billion over 75 years, according to a University of Chicago study to be released today.

Sen. John F. Kerry plans to use the paper, by economist Austan Goolsbee, as he campaigns in Florida today, hoping to open a new line of attack against Bush. The Democratic presidential nominee is expected to say that Bush's Social Security plan is a sop to Wall Street donors, who are among the Bush campaign's biggest financial backers.

[...]

Over 75 years, fees would total $940 billion, more than a quarter of the $3.7 trillion deficit the Social Security system will run over that time period. That would be the largest windfall in U.S. financial history, Goolsbee said, more than eight times the revenue loss that Wall Street suffered during the 2000-02 stock market collapse.

[...]

Michael Tanner, a Cato Institute analyst who has pushed for individual accounts, said Goolsbee's administrative cost estimate is slightly higher than Cato's, which put management fees at as much as 0.65 percent, but "not unrealistic."

I think this is a great plan for Kerry and it will go far in painting the President as an opportunist who only cares about bailing out his corporate cronies. I'm glad to see the Senator on the attack and I hope he continues this tactic throughout the remainder of the campaign.

Alan Cooperman reports in tomorrow morning's issue of the Washington Post on a recent poll commissioned by the American Jewish Council showing a big surge for John Kerry among Jewish voters. He writes in "Iraq War Leads Jewish Voters To Kerry, Poll Finds" thusly:

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) is gaining support among Jewish voters as growing numbers disapprove of President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, according to a poll commissioned by the American Jewish Committee.

If the election were held today, 69 percent of Jewish voters would support Kerry, 24 percent would back Bush and 3 percent would give their votes to Ralph Nader, the survey found. That's an increase of 10 percentage points for Kerry since December, when the last AJC poll showed him with 59 percent of the Jewish vote.

He continues:

Although Jews make up only about 2 percent of the U.S. population, they are a significant group in some battlegrounds, such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and a major fundraising base for Democratic candidates.

The poll did not ask why voters support Bush or Kerry. But some of its findings suggest that the rising support for Kerry is connected to the war in Iraq, according to David A. Harris, executive director of the nonpartisan AJC. The survey found that 66 percent of U.S. Jews disapprove of the war, up from 54 percent in December; 57 percent think the threat of terrorism against the United States has increased as a result of the war.

"The president has not made any inroads among the middle-of-the-road Jewish voters, probably because, on issues like abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, gun control and church-state issues, he has stuck with his most loyal conservative constituency and has not tacked toward the center," Harris said.

This is not surprising as Jews have been an integral part of the Democratic coalition at least since Harry Truman recognized Israel in 1948 and perhaps since the creation of the New Deal coalition in 1932. Nevertheless, this is a group that the President has heavily targeted in this election with his pandering to the pro-Likud crowd, and the fact that his level of support is only 5% higher than it was in 2000 among Jewish voters (barely statistically significant in this poll with a MoE of +/- 3%) shows he has not been particularly successful in this aim.

I still don't know exactly where I stand on the pro-war/anti-war debate (I'm probably somewhere in the middle), but I thought John Locke's words are particularly germane to the situation in which we currently are mired in Iraq. This from Locke's Second Treatise on Government, Chapter XVI (On Conquest):

175. Though governments can originally have no other rise than that before mentioned, nor polities be founded on anything but the consent of the people, yet such have been the disorders ambition has filled the world with, that in the noise of war, which makes so great a part of the history of mankind, this consent is little taken notice of; and, therefore, many have mistaken the force of arms for the consent of the people, and reckon conquest as one of the originals of government. But conquest is as far from setting up any government as demolishing a house is from building a new one in the place. Indeed, it often makes way for a new frame of a commonwealth by destroying the former; but, without the consent of the people, can never erect a new one.

176. That the aggressor, who puts himself into the state of war with another, and unjustly invades another man's right, can, by such an unjust war, never come to have a right over the conquered, will be easily agreed by all men, who will not think that robbers and pirates have a right of empire over whomsoever they have force enough to master, or that men are bound by promises which unlawful force extorts from them. Should a robber break into my house, and, with a dagger at my throat, make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title? Just such a title by his sword has an unjust conqueror who forces me into submission. The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown or some petty villain. The title of the offender and the number of his followers make no difference in the offence, unless it be to aggravate it. The only difference is, great robbers punish little ones to keep them in their obedience; but the great ones are rewarded with laurels and triumphs, because they are too big for the weak hands of justice in this world, and have the power in their own possession which should punish offenders. [...] He that conquers in an unjust war can thereby have no title to the subjection and obedience of the conquered.

Wow. John Locke--who is cited by many to have created the central philosophical development that most greatly affected Thomas Jefferson's writing of the Declaration of Independence (the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness [or property for Locke])--would be pretty appalled by our actions in Iraq today, no doubt.

But conquest is as far from setting up any government as demolishing a house is from building a new one in the place.

He that conquers in an unjust war can thereby have no title to the subjection and obedience of the conquered.

Those are very tough words coming from a man credited as one of the founders of modern political theory. I'm certain President Bush hasn't read Locke in ages--if ever; perhaps he should, though, as the 17th century scholar had a lot of insightful things to say about the situation in which we currently find ourselves.

I don't think any current critic of the Administration has so eloquently destroyed our case for domineering Iraq today--we are fighting non-Baathist Iraqis today, the people we purportedly attempted to free.

He that conquers in an unjust war can thereby have no title to the subjection and obedience of the conquered.

I couldn't say it any better myself.

Unfortunately, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is not among those indicted, but the AP reports that the indictments hit close to home for the Texas lawmaker. April Castro has this to write:

Three people and eight corporations — including Sears and Cracker Barrel — were indicted Tuesday in an alleged scheme to make illegal campaign contributions through a political action committee formed by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

DeLay, a Texas Republican, was not charged.

The grand jury has been investigating whether $2.5 million in corporate funds were used illegally to help Republican candidates win elections in 2002 that gave the GOP a majority in the Texas House for the first time since Reconstruction. The GOP later used its majority to redraw Texas' congressional districts to favor Republican candidates.

Texas law prohibits the use of corporate money for political activity.

DeLay was not questioned or subpoenaed as part of the grand jury investigation.

Those charged included three men connected to DeLay's PAC, Texans for a Republican Majority: John Colyandro, James Ellis and Warren RoBold.

[...]

Ellis heads DeLay's national fund-raising committee, Americans for a Republican Majority, which helped establish the Texas PAC. Colyandro is former executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority, and RoBold is a Washington fund-raiser who helped raise money for DeLay's PACs.

This all reaks of illegality, and I hope the national media picks up this story. If this isn't on the front page of all the major papers tomorrow and in the evening broadcasts tonight, I'm not sure if there could be any better proof of the media's bias to the right.

Imagine if the fundraising arm of Nancy Pelosi's PAC were caught laundering funds but her California cronies made sure she wasn't indicted. The nation would be outrages, every radio talkshow host from Anchorage to Miami would be screaming for a resignation and the Democratic leadership in the House would crumble. The fact of the matter is that the media are completely complicit in this sham of a trial, and if they fail to report on this story in a major way (which they probably will), their unfair slant will be that much more apparent to those who follow goings on around the media.

My feeling is this: if the right wing can create a story in their top-down blogosphere--which isn't true--that the media ends up taking as a fact, we can take a real story and make the media pay attention to it. Let everyone you know about this article, pass it on to all of the other blogs, make sure that editors in your local papers see this; Tom DeLay must be made to pay for setting up a PAC that launders money.

We can force the media to deal with this story just like we forced them to pay attention to the Trent Lott debacle. Now that we've already taken down a Senate Majority Leader, let's take down a House Majority Leader!

Last week, the Salem Statesman Journal reported that Oregon Democrats were blowing away the Republicans in newly registered voters by nearly a 2-1 margin. This extension of the party's already large lead in voter registration was indicative of the Beaver State's move away from the GOP in recent years. The latest Battleground Poll from John Zogby yesterday seemed to confirm that the Democrats are set to win big in November in the state. Now, a scandal is ripping through the state Republican Party that could further swing the state blue in the upcoming election, perhaps even allowing the Democrats to gain full control of the state legislature for the first time in a decade.

The Oregonian's Jeff Mapes writes today in "State GOP helps its chairman shed debt" that 2002 gubernatorial candidate Kevin Mannix and current state GOP chairman is in hot water for diverting funds from the state party to pay off his own debt. Mapes writes this:

The Oregon Republican Party recently took the unusual step of paying its chairman, Kevin Mannix, $37,000 to help him retire some of the large debt he carries from his unsuccessful 2002 bid for governor.

But the payment has drawn criticism from some top Republicans who think the money should be spent on current political campaigns -- and who question whether Mannix is financially benefiting from his volunteer position as head of the party.

Mannix and other party officials are not paid for their work, and the party has not typically helped its nominees pay lingering campaign debts.

Mannix defended the payment, saying it was part of a new program the party set up to help Republican candidates who wound up with campaign debt. And he says the payment was also a recognition of his work in helping the party raise what he said were record amounts of money.

Mapes reports that this action has drawn the ire of many leading Republicans.

Mannix's finances elicited criticism from some Republican activists this week.

"We shouldn't be helping candidates who go into debt," said Rep. Jeff Kropf, R-Lebanon, who argued that the money should instead go to helping elect Republicans running for office this year.

Gayna Flake, who left the state Republican Central Committee in June, said she raised objections when the plan to help repay debt incurred by Mannix and other candidates was approved last year.

"It would be better to spend the money on current candidates than bailing out past candidates," said Flake, who called the party action "self-serving."

Mannix was by far the largest beneficiary of the program to repay candidates' debts.

Whereas Mannix received $37,000 in April, three other candidates split a total of slightly less than $2,200. The other candidates were Liz VanLeeuween, who ran for Congress, and two legislative candidates, Donna Nelson and John Scruggs.

The Oregon Republican Party is a joke today, which is a sad statement given that this was not long ago a one party state in favor of the GOP. It may be hard to remember, but less than 10 years ago the state was represented by two liberal Republicans in the Senate who chaired the Appropriations Committee and the Finance Committee, and Republicans were competitive across the state.

The fact is that Oregon GOP is facing the same problem of the national party today: by moving too far to the right and constantly trying to fight off moderates and liberals, they have drastically winnowed away the field of possible voters. Karl Rove's strategy might work in the short run as the Republicans could win this year; nonetheless, by using an orthodox ideology to drive the ultra right into a frenzy this year to win reelection for the President, the Republicans have alienated a huge swath of the electorate for years to come.

In Oregon, with the fact that the state GOP chairman may be embezzling serious amounts of funds to further his own cause will not help out this situation. The Oregon GOP is in shambles, and you're going to see the effects of this on November 2.

R.G. Ratcliffe reports in tomorrow morning's issue of the Houston Chronicle that big news should arrive soon regarding the House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay of Texas. Though some might be discouraged by the fact that the House Ethics Panel has dealt so poorly with its investigations of DeLay, it looks like a Texas District Attorney was not nearly as lax. Ratcliffe writes under the headline "Action awaited in GOP probe" thusly:

A Travis County grand jury investigating Republican political spending in the 2002 state House races ends its term today, and lawyers involved in the case are bracing for it to take action.

A Travis County grand jury investigating Republican political spending in the 2002 state House races ends its term today, and lawyers involved in the case are bracing for it to take action.

[...]

Even though the current grand jury term is ending, prosecutors could hand the case off to a new grand jury.

Ratcliffe explains that insiders don't expect an indictment of DeLay as the Grand Jury primarily focused on TRMPAC, a Political Action Committee formed by DeLay. How this distinction is made baffles me, but I am not a legal expert--especially when it comes to Texas elections law. It is disappointing, though, because it looks like DeLay might be getting off scot-free for pretty egregious actions.

Nonetheless, we don't know how the Grand Jury is going to rule in this case. If they indeed end up indicting the Majority Leader--which might be unlikely, but is still very possible--the political repercussions could be immense and we could realistically see the Democrats retake the US House for the first time in a decade. One can only hope...

Wow! I haven't seen it yet as I'm on the West Coast but this top 10 sounds hilarious.

Democrat John Kerry joked Monday on "The Late Show with David Letterman" about changes under President Bush's tax plan, including that Vice President Dick Cheney can claim the president as a dependent.

Besides reading his "Top 10" list, Kerry also poked fun at the tedious debate negotiations between the rival campaigns that ended in agreement Monday. Kerry said he wanted running mate John Edwards to stand in the vice presidential debate, but Cheney wanted to sit. "We compromised and now George Bush is going to sit on Dick Cheney's lap," he said.

Both Bush and Democratic rival Al Gore appeared on the CBS show in 2000. Bush has not appeared on any late-night comedy shows in this campaign. Kerry also has appeared on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" on NBC.

Kerry's "Top 10 Bush Tax Proposals" are:

10. No estate tax for families with at least two U.S. presidents.

9. W-2 Form is now Dubya-2 Form.

8. Under the simplified tax code, your refund check goes directly to Halliburton.

7. The reduced earned income tax credit is so unfair, it just makes me want to tear out my lustrous, finely groomed hair.

6. Attorney General (John) Ashcroft gets to write off the entire U.S. Constitution.

5. Texas Rangers can take a business loss for trading Sammy Sosa.

4. Eliminate all income taxes; just ask Teresa (Heinz Kerry) to cover the whole damn thing.

3. Cheney can claim Bush as a dependent.

2. Hundred-dollar penalty if you pronounce it "nuclear" instead of "nucular."

1. George W. Bush gets a deduction for mortgaging our entire future (emphasis added).

Link

Per Josh Marshall:

Investor's Business Daily/Christian Science Monitor poll out today has exactly the same numbers as Zogby: Bush 46%, Kerry 43% among likely voters. Among registered voters Bush 44%, Kerry 43%.

Click here for the info. Here's a bit of it before you click:

Kerry up by 12.7% in New Mexico (not trailing by 4 as NBC claims)
Kerry up by 12.0% in Oregon (not trailing by 4 as NBC claims)

Much more over at the link.

An AP piece entitled "GOP Sen. Won't Commit to Voting for Bush" examines how moderate Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee might not vote for the President in the upcoming election. Here's what they write:

Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee said Monday he plans to support his party in November but may write in a candidate instead of voting for President Bush.

The Rhode Island lawmaker, known for moderate views that often run counter to the Bush administration, said he was going to vote for a member of his party even though he disagrees with the president on many issues.

"I'm a Republican," said Chafee, who was appointed to the Senate in November 1999 to fill the seat when his father, John, died.

[...]

The Republican said the party's direction in the future will determine his political career as well. He said he's "not OK" with the conservative platform from the Republican convention, but would not say if he'd consider switching parties in his next election in 2006.

"It wasn't that long ago that moderates had more of a voice," Chafee said. "It's a cycle that I hope will come back."

This is huge news. A prominent Republican Senator will not confirm he will continue to be a member of the GOP caucus in the future. This is yet another testament to the decline and demise of the Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party.

Alleged-RINO (Republican in name only) Arlen Specter had this to say in the April 12 issue of the New Yorker on his fierce primary battle against uber-conservative Pat Toomey:

"When I came to the Senate, we had a lot of members of the Wednesday Club"-a weekly gathering of Republican moderates. "You had Lowell Weicker, you had Bob Stafford, you had Bob Packwood, you had Mark Hatfield, you had [John] Chafee, you had John Danforth, you had Jim Jeffords, you had John Heinz. Now there are only a few of us. And it's important. When Joe Biden needs a co-sponsor, he comes to Arlen Specter. That kind of balance is really important for the country. It's more than the soul of the Republican Party; it's to have some balance within the Party and within the two-party system."

Spector is staying with his party--at least for the moment. The same cannot be said for a number of former high ranking Republicans.

On the eve of the Republican National Convention, a group of big name GOP moderates including former GOP Govs. David Cargo of New Mexico, Dan Evans of Washington, A. Linwood Holton of Virginia, William Milliken of Michigan, Walter Peterson of New Hampshire; former U.S. Sens. Charles Mathias of Maryland and Robert Stafford of Vermont; and Nathaniel Reed, former assistant Interior Secretary under Presidents Nixon and Ford, and Russell Train, EPA administrator under Presidents Nixon and Ford all came out against Republican extremism. Big names in Minnesota's GOP also had harsh words for the party at the same time.

Later, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, who will be remembered by history as the only African-American man to serve in the United States Senate in the 20th century and the first African-American elected to the Senate by popular vote, penned an op-ed in The New York Times comparing the 2004 RNC to the 1964 debacle in which Barry Goldwater was nominated. After the Convention, a Pew Poll found that while "83% of conservative Republicans nationwide were satisfied by their options for president. But only 57% of moderate and liberal Republicans were, down from 70% in 2000."

The fact is that the Republican coalition founded by Reagan in 1980 and confirmed by Newt Gingrich in 1994--bloated after nearly 24 years at the helm of the nation in one way or another--is set to crumble at any minute. After having bowed to the extreme right over the past year in an attempt to win this year's Presidential election, moderate Republicans across the nation are moments away from leaving the party in droves.

Jim Jeffords already left the party, as have the aforementioned moderate coalition of former governors and senators, and Chafee has now signaled he might even be willing to leave the party. Perhaps even Maine's Snowe and Collins might also be persuaded to make the switch, thus completely finishing the Rockefeller wing of the GOP. One thing is known, though; if Bush doesn't lose most Republican moderates before this election, there's no way they will continue to suffer voiceless in this coalition indefinitely.

He's got the scoop on why some of the polls are wrong but Zogby's right.

It's the question my family and friends ask me almost every day: Who is winning this election? Most of the latest polls are all over the map. CNN/Gallup shows Bush over Kerry by 13. Pew finds Bush up by 1. Harris finds Kerry up by 1. Well, here's a little Hardball secret: The one pollster my colleagues and I watch very closely is a guy by the name of John Zogby.

Why the Zogby poll? First, a little history: On November 6, 2000... the final CNN/Gallup tracking poll showed Bush over Gore 47-45. Wall St. Journal: Bush over Gore 47-44. ABC/Washington Post: Bush over Gore 48-45. Tarrance: Bush over Gore 46-41. Christian Science Monitor: Bush over Gore 48-46. Only CBS (Gore over Bush by 1) and Zogby (Gore 47-Bush 46) got it correct. (Gore received 500,000 more votes than Bush... though Bush, with Florida, won the "electoral college" and the White House.)

What happened? Most of the pollsters in 2000 used an inaccurate model of minority turnout. Basically, their sampling model for minorities was too small and the polls thereby underestimated Gore's support. Gallup's model, for example, was based on the premise that election turnout would be 87.5% white and 12.5% "non white." However, according to exit polls, 19% of the voters were "non-white" and 81% were "white," a ratio that only Zogby nailed.

One other important point: Remember the lesson from Florida. In each state, it's a winner take all as far as the electoral college is concerned, even if the candidates are separated in that state's popular vote by a Florida like .001%. So, while some of the national polls right now may be interesting... they don't tell us what we need to know. And what we need to know is, what are the poll numbers in each of the top battleground states (Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, Minnesota, West Virginia, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Tennessee.)

As of this very moment, John Zogby is finishing his battleground state polls. (He is doing them every two weeks.) The Zogby "state by state" numbers will be out late Monday night or Tuesday. Tune in to Hardball next week and we will have his results (and our best guidance) as to "who is winning this election."

Link

Gannett News Service runs a highly informative piece on the state of the Presidential race in its papers across the country today. Carl Weiser writes under the headline "Minor party candidates could affect tight election" that... well, just that: minor party candidates could affect a tight election. This Ohio-centric feature comes from the Zanesville Times Recorder in Central Ohio. Weiser leads thusly:

Mike Martini describes himself as a pro-gun, pro-life and pro-smaller government conservative. So his presidential choice, he says, is clear.

Michael Peroutka.

Who?

Peroutka, a Maryland lawyer, is the presidential candidate for the Constitution Party. He'll appear on Ohio presidential ballots Nov. 2.

So will Michael Badnarik, a Texas computer consultant who is the presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party.

He continues:

Badnarik and Peroutka supporters say they could matter -- especially because they tend to draw people from President Bush.

Peroutka's slogan is "God, Family, Republic." He calls for pulling troops out of Iraq, ending abortion, basing government on biblical principles and deporting all illegal aliens. On his Web site, he pledges to "stand up against the entrenched socialists, elitists and globalists who currently have a stranglehold on American political power."

Like Peroutka, Libertarian Badnarik also supports pulling troops out of Iraq. He favors gay marriage, free trade and opening the borders to immigrants as long as they are not terrorists or criminals. His slogan: "Lighting the Fires of Liberty."

Martini, a former Republican and Bush voter in 2000, said he's disgusted with what he calls an unconstitutional war in Iraq, the growth of the federal government, the Patriot Act and Bush's support of the United Nations.

"I think Mr. Peroutka could have a huge impact in Ohio," said Martini, a 43-year-old engineer from suburban Cincinnati. "I think a lot of Ohioans are searching for a candidate that better reflects their views and positions on the issues but have no choice but to pick between the two evils known as Bush and Kerry."

This article is dead on in its analysis of this election. Although pundits and editorialists (and unfortunately reporters) constantly focus on Ralph Nader--who is only on about half of the state ballots--Badnarik and Peroutka could affect the race just as profoundly as the consumer advocate (if not more) as they will both appear on more than half of the state's ballots.

As I wrote in July, the two minor party candidates on the right have a real chance at swinging this election for John Kerry and thus claiming a right to appear on the center stage of American politics. In fact, in John Zogby's most recent poll Badnarik's 1.2% support is statistically the same as the 1.4% for Nader. As a result, though you may continue to fret that Ralph Nader could once again cause the Democrats to lose the election, if Badnarik and Peroutka remain strong through the remainder of the campaign season, George W. Bush and his handlers will have much more to worry that Senator Kerry's cadre.

Alan Keyes positioned for a break-out?

New St. Louis Post-Dispatch poll has him closing the gap to under 50 percentage points against Barack Obama.

Obama 68%, Keyes 23%, Other/Unsure 9%.

I was quoted in this month's edition of the Pomona College magazine. Nothing political (it's about jazz clubs in LA), but it's fun to see my name in print nonetheless.

Multi-candidate

Presidential Candidate This Week's % (Sept8-Sept9, Aug30-Sept2)
Republican - George W. Bush 46% (46, 46)
Democrat - John Kerry 43% (42, 44)
Independent - Ralph Nader 1.4% (2.4, 3)
Libertarian - Michael Badnarik 1.2% (.9, .3)
Constitution - Michael Peroutka .1% (.3, -)
Green - David Cobb - (-, -)
Other .9% (.6, .6)
Undecided 7% (8, 7)

Two-way race

Presidential Candidate This Week's % (Sept8-Sept9, Aug30-Sept2)
Republican - George W. Bush 47% (47, 46)
Democrat - John Kerry 44% (45, 44)
Undecided 7% (7, 9)

Zogby International conducted telephone interviews of 1066 likely voters chosen at random nationwide. All calls were made from Zogby International headquarters in Utica, N.Y., from Friday, September 17 through Sunday, September 19, 2004. The margin of error is +/-3.1 percentage points. Slight weights were added to region, party, age, race, religion and gender to more accurately reflect the voting population. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.

Link with solid internals and analysis

---

Just a friendly reminder: this poll is within the margin of error, so the race could be called a statistical dead heat at this point.

Jerome over at MyDD.com has the scoop:

............................CO.....CA......NH.....NY.......SC.......WA
Kerry & Edwards....45%...55%....51%....49%.....44%.....50%
Bush & Cheney......46%...39%....45%....44%.....50%.....45%

All courtesy of Rasmussen

Mike Allen and Dan Balz report in the Washington Post tomorrow morning that President Bush is backing away from his desire to only debate John Kerry twice. Allen and Balz write in "Bush, Kerry Tentatively Settle on 3 Debates" that Kerry's debate team, lead by Vernon Jordan, pressured the Jim Baker-led Bush team "through the news media, Republican donors and public officials in Missouri to go through with the town-hall debate." For Baker--who led the 2000 Republican effort to stop the Florida recount, among other things--this was the former Secretary of State's first major political defeat in years. The reporters lead with this:

The campaigns of President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry have tentatively settled on a package of three face-to-face debates that both sides view as a potentially decisive chance to sway huge audiences ahead of the Nov. 2 election, Democrats and Republicans said yesterday.

Bush's campaign, which opened the negotiations by urging just two sessions involving Bush and Kerry, yielded to the full slate of debates that had been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates, according to people in both parties who were briefed on the negotiations.

For more on the debate schedule and some history of Presidential debates check out this post.

Allen and Balz also write up the expectations gaming each side is partaking in.

Both sides have already begun portraying the opposing candidate as a tremendous debater, as part of the quadrennial ritual of trying to lower expectations for the nominees' performances. Kerry strategist Joe Lockhart told reporters in a conference call Friday that he would "challenge anyone to name a major debate that George Bush has been in where he hasn't been considered the winner."

Matthew Dowd, the Bush-Cheney campaign's chief strategist, said in an interview earlier this month that Kerry "is very formidable, and probably the best debater ever to run for president." "I'm not joking," Dowd added. "I think he's better than Cicero," the ancient Roman orator. "But I think it'll be a very good thing for the American public to see these two men stand side by side. You can't hide who you are."

John Fallows wrote the year's definitive piece on what to expect from this year's debates in the July/August edition of the Atlantic, a must read for political junkies like you and me. Fallows writes in "When George Meets John" that neither man has ever lost a major debate in his respective political career, and thus neither should be underestimated. You should definitely read it to get a fuller understanding of the stakes of this debate season.

Scott Rasmussen seems to think so. This was a very interesting article for a political/historical junkie like me, so if you're into that type of stuff, I highly suggest you go over and read it.

In other news from Rasmussen, Bush leads by just under 2 points in the latest tracking poll, 48-46.

Democratic Congresswoman Darlene Hooley represents one of the most highly contested seats in the nation. In 2000, her district went for George W. Bush by a 48.5-47.0 margin, and since then the Republicans have targeted her district as a possible pickup for 2004 (both Dennis Hastert and Dick Cheney have held fundraisers for her opponent in the race, Jim Zupancic). While current polling shows here with a 15 point lead, her support lags just under 50% of the electorate, a tenuous position for an incumbent. (For more on the race, click here).

A major new development occurred in the race this morning as the Salem Statesman Journal--the largest paper in her district and the second largest publication in Oregon--wholeheartedly endorsed Hooley in a move that could help the Congresswoman further distance herself from Zupancic. Under the headline "Oregon, nation need moderates such as Hooley", the paper's editorial board writes thusly:

In the past, the Statesman Journal editorial board and others have criticized Hooley for not being much of a national leader. On some issues, it turns out that Hooley has done more than lead; she’s been way ahead.

She was working against identity theft, credit fraud and the methamphetamine epidemic before those became national issues. While other politicians hogged the limelight over big-name causes, Hooley plugged away on issues that touch Americans’ daily lives. She pays attention to local concerns, such as assisting Oregon National Guard troops and their families, and helping Salem try to gain commercial airline service.

They continue:

She’s a moderate — her opponent in the Democratic primary criticized her as too Republican — and she builds coalitions to get things done.

Seniority means a lot in the 435-member House, and Hooley is working her way into higher-profile roles after eight years in the Capitol. That’s good. It’s past time for her to exert greater national leadership.

The editorial board then turns their focus to the Republican Zupancic.

In the Republican primary, he presented himself as the true conservative in nastily attacking Sen. Jackie Winters of Salem. For the general election, he’s portraying himself as more moderate.

Zupancic is bright, thoughtful and well-spoken. It’s too bad that he’s not running instead for the Oregon Legislature, where voters could judge his views and his leadership before promoting him to higher office. Although he campaigns hard, he can’t match Hooley’s commitment and service to the 5th District.

The most important point the board makes in the piece is the critical role Hooley plays in the national political discussion:

In this weird political climate where Republicans have dumped a balanced budget and enlarged the federal deficit, centrist Democrats such as Hooley may be the key to controlling the federal debt.

Darlene Hooley has been a great Congresswoman for the fifth district and Oregon as a whole, so it's a very good thing that the Statesman Journal has recognized this and decided to endorse her. If you want any more information on her or to give her some money (almost all of which she will spend to get out as many Democratic-leaning voters in this swing state), go to her website at Hooley.org.

Tomorrow morning's edition of the New York Times features an engrossing piece by Frank Rich on media bias and the downfall of television news. Entitled "This Time Bill O'Reilly Got It Right" (don't worry, it's not a right wing diatribe), Rich delivers zinger after zinger as he takes the media to task for its leanings.

If a stopped clock is right twice a day, why shouldn't Bill O'Reilly be right at least once in a blue moon? When Fox News's most self-infatuated star attacked CNN for keeping James Carville and Paul Begala as hosts on "Crossfire" after they had joined the Kerry campaign, he fingered yet another symptom of the decline and fall of the American news culture. "In the wake of the vicious attacks on Fox News for allegedly being `G.O.P. TV,' I expected the media to brutally dismember CNN and the new boys on John Kerry's bus," Mr. O'Reilly wrote in his syndicated column. "But instead it's been the silence of the lambs from the press. Can you say media bias?"

Yes, you can, though it must be said in the same breath that Mr. O'Reilly is only half-right. Fox News isn't "allegedly" G.O.P. TV — it is G.O.P. TV.

At this point at reading the story, I was still somewhat concerned that Rich's piece would indeed turn out to be the conservative diatribe his headline might have indicated. Rich blasts the decision by CNN to allow Paul Begala and James Carville to continue as anchors of its program "Crossfire" despite the fact that they are advising John Kerry's campaign (even if informally). CNN, Rich says, is "hemorrhaging in quality and viewers" not just because of this alleged political slant to the left (which he buys into to a degree) but also because it is simply not as good as it used to be.

Soon, however, Rich turns his focus back to the media as a whole and exposes exactly what's wrong with the way that journalists are giving the American people their news. Here are a few of his best points:

• What much of the other news media have offered as an alternative has not been an alternative at all. At some point after 9/11, the news business jumped the shark and started relaying unchallenged administration propaganda — though with less zeal and showbiz pizazz than Fox. The notorious March 2003 presidential news conference at which not a single probing question was asked by the entire White House press corps heralded the broader Foxification to come. As Michael Massing, a frequent critic of this newspaper and others, put it on PBS's NewsHour, the failure of the American news media to apply proper skepticism to the administration's stated rationale for war in Iraq is "one of the most serious institutional failures of the press" since our slide into Vietnam. Mr. Massing attributes some of this to the fear of challenging a president then at the height of his popularity. Whatever the explanation — and there are many, depending on the news organization — the net effect was that the entire press came off as Fox Lite. The motive to parrot the administration line may not have been ideological, as it was at Fox, but since the misinformation was the same, news consumers can't be blamed for finding that a distinction without a difference.
  
  
• From Jessica Lynch to "Mission Accomplished" to, most recently, the bogus charges of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, there is a tendency to give administration-favored fiction credibility first, often cementing the spin into fact well before the tough questions are asked (if they're ever asked).
  
  
• When the press isn't creating its own embarrassments, the administration will step in to intimidate and undermine journalists who don't regurgitate its approved narrative.
  
  
• ...the first of the Big Three anchors, Tom Brokaw, retires at NBC after the election. Mr. Brokaw's successor is Brian Williams, now most famous for the ridicule rightly heaped on him by Jon Stewart for his inability to articulate a single question for Al Sharpton during a live interview at the Democratic convention.

This is one of the best pieces of writing I have read in quite some time--in the news and in books. What is more, it captures the dilemma we face in this nation regarding our poor excuse for an independent media as well as any writer I've read in months. You should definitely pass this on to anyone who doesn't fully grasp the gravity of our problem with the media, and perhaps it will open up their minds to what's really happening in this country.

(PS: You should make them to watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart so they can see how our traditional media are betraying us)

The New York Times's Tom Zeller, Jr. has an extremely interesting article out tomorrow morning on the relative effectiveness of different voting methods, and a lot of important issues are raised as a result. Zeller writes under the headline "The Hand-Marked Ballot Wins for Accuracy" thusly:

After the pandemonium over dimpled and pregnant chads in the 2000 election, nearly everyone agreed it was time to rethink old vote-counting ways. But the stampede to touch-screen voting was not inevitable.

Another, demonstrably more reliable technology was already on the rise: optical scan voting, introduced in some parts of the country in the late 1970's. By the 2000 election, optical scanning - which involves marking a paper ballot that is ultimately read and counted by a computer - had overtaken all other voting methods as the most common way to vote in the United States. This year, optical scan systems will be used in more than 45 percent of all counties, according to Election Data Services, a political consulting firm in Washington.

He continues:

After the 2000 election, a study by the Voting Technology Project, a joint effort by the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, took a hard look at the nation's voting systems. Using a measure of what they called "residual votes" - overcounting, undercounting or not counting votes for any reason - researchers found that two existing voting methods had produced relatively low error rates in the last four presidential elections: old-fashioned hand-counted paper ballots and optical scan systems.

The study found that the mechanical lever system, which dominated the market in 1980 and has been in decline ever since, performed considerably worse. In overall performance, electronic voting - both the older push-button variety and the newer touch-screen units - performed scarcely better than punch cards (emphasis added).

Regardless of how you feel about this election--whether you want to see George W. Bush or John Kerry reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the next four years--I think everyone would agree that it's important for as many votes as possible to be counted. The fact is that not every vote will be counted, and in fact even in ideal situations about 2% of the votes won't be counted.

I think people of all political persuasions would agree that it's important to have the best voting methods possible in each election to decrease the possibility of votes not being counted. Accordingly, we must select optical scanning units--rather than touch screen machines--to ensure that the results of our election match the result of our votes.

Colorado may be a Republican-leaning state, but voters so far prefer Democratic Attorney General Ken Salazar over beer baron Pete Coors in the high- stakes U.S. Senate race.

If the election were held today, 53 percent of voters would select Salazar, while 42 percent would choose Coors, a Rocky Mountain News/News 4 poll found.

Voters overwhelmingly believe Salazar is more in touch with the concerns of average Colorado families and cares more about the environment.

And the poll shows Salazar winning the Hispanic and rural vote - both of which will be critical Nov. 2, said Lori Weigel of Public Opinion Strategies, which conducted the poll.

"The thing that is difficult for Coors right now is his image is beer and not much else," Weigel said. "A third of the voters look at him and think 'beer.' "

Nearly a third of the voters look at Salazar and think "attorney general," which Weigel said she found surprising because that is not a high-profile office.

"The other thing that would be concerning to me if I were on the Coors campaign is that Salazar has half the unfavorable rating as Coors," she said. "And Pete Coors has had 'positive image ads' up on TV for a long time."

With Oklahoma looking better and better for the Dems, it looks like the chances of Ton Daschle becoming Senate Majority Leader again are increasing by the minute.

At what point have they crossed the line?

Campaign mail with a return address of the Republican National Committee warns West Virginia voters that the Bible will be prohibited and men will marry men if liberals win in November.

The literature shows a Bible with the word "BANNED" across it and a photo of a man, on his knees, placing a ring on the hand of another man with the word "ALLOWED." The mailing tells West Virginians to "vote Republican to protect our families" and defeat the "liberal agenda."

If a Democrat tried anything remotely like this, he'd be crucified.

This has been a pretty awful week for the Republican Senate candidate in Oklahoma, Tom Coburn. First, word came on Monday that his substantial lead in the polls had disappeared as Democrat Brad Carson took a small 2 point lead. Later, the national media began picking up a story that first ran on Salon.com regarding the sterilization of a woman against her will (the Washington Post and the New York Times examine the claims). Later, as he continued to reel, he made a comment that offended one of Oklahoma's largest constituencies, the Cherokee Nation. At this point, another poll came out showing Carson with a much more substantial 7 point lead in the race.

As a result of this all, the NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Campaign) has been forced to dump a lot of money into this race relatively early on. Oklahoma, a state that by all measures should be an easy win for the Republicans is proving more difficult each moment Coburn is on the campaign trail, and the GOP must be kicking itself for nominating Dr. Tom in the first place.

The AP's David Epso files the story entitled "GOP Campaign on to Help Coburn in Okla." and leads as follows:

Republicans rushed to the defense of embattled Senate candidate Tom Coburn in Oklahoma on Friday, airing a television commercial that accuses his Democratic rival of being a "big time liberal" and opponent of President Bush (news - web sites)'s tax cuts.

"Tom Coburn is known for saying some crazy things, and calling Brad Carson a liberal may just be the craziest of them all," countered Kristofer Eisenla, a spokesman for Carson.

He added that Carson has supported over $1 trillion in tax cuts in two terms in the House.

Epso continues by saying that the NRSC would not even let reporters know how much they had to put in to the struggling campaign.

NRSC officials declined Friday night to disclose how much they would spend on the commercial. It is expected to air statewide for at least a week while Coburn tries to raise funds for the fall campaign as well as break free of the controversy that has dogged him.

The ads were paid for under a portion of the election law that permits the senatorial committee to spend nearly $400,000 in coordination with Coburn's campaign, and the former congressman appears in the commercial, saying he approved the message.

Although this might seem like bad news for Carson, the fact that the Republicans are running scared in this race says more about the state of the campaign than any poll--even one showing the Democrat up by 7 points. The NRSC's Democratic counterpart, the DSCC, is well-funded under the helm of former CEO of Goldman Sachs and current New Jersey Senator Jon Corzine, will certainly invest heavily in this state, so worry not about funding. If you want to play a role in retaking the Senate, however, you should definitely consider giving to Brad Carson's campaign.

Craig Crawford of Congressional Quarterly just explained why these polls have such large leads for Bush: too many Republicans in the sample and too few minorities. He also explained that Zogby was the only pollster four years ago to correctly predict a Gore win in the popular vote.

The Left Coaster has the scoop. (I'll give you a hint--it has to do with poor sampling with too many Republicans)

There's a great free article up today on Economist.com explaining how oil prices will not quickly fall despite the recent decision by OPEC to increase production. The publication writes as follows:

Last week, the oil minister from the United Arab Emirates said that OPEC was likely to consider raising the formal production quotas it sets for its members, in response to an oil price that has remained stubbornly above $40 per barrel. At the weekend, other OPEC delegates contradicted him, saying a rise in quotas was unlikely and a cut in production was quite possible before next spring. But at its meeting in Vienna on Wednesday September 15th, OPEC announced that it would raise its quotas by 1m barrels per day (bpd), to 27m bpd, with effect from November 1st. It also decided to meet again sooner than scheduled, agreeing to reconvene in Cairo on December 6th.

If OPEC’s signals are even harder to read than Mr Greenspan’s at the moment, it may be because the cartel finds itself in a position the central banker would dread. When Mr Greenspan sets his target for the federal funds rate, he can be sure it will be met. But when OPEC announces an output quota, it can be quite confident the target will be missed—the cartel is currently exceeding its official limit by as much as 2m bpd. Even worse, OPEC’s oil output is now almost as high as it can go. Raising quotas may thus have no discernible effect on production (emphasis added).

The dilemma is not relegated to production; the Economist explains that prices might not fall even if the production increases called for by OPEC come to fruition.

With supplies stretched this tight, any disruption or disturbance can move the oil price: the insurrectionist sabotage of pipelines in Iraq, the court-ordered sabotage of the Yukos oil company in Russia, or the meteorological sabotage wreaked by Hurricane Ivan in the Mexican Gulf. News of another fall in America’s stocks of crude added almost a dollar to the oil price during trading on Wednesday, leaving OPEC rather upstaged.

The painful fact that the Economist imparts in this article--one that's sadly missing from any of President Bush's speeches--is the fact that production alone cannot abate our energy problems. In fact, the Economist goes further by implying that increases in production--which it fully explains are hard to come to--might not even decrease the cost of oil as a result of the many sources of turmoil in the world (not to mention high demand).

The only relief the magazine sees lies in a declining economy, sadly. If prices ultimately rise too sharply, they write, demand will be curtailed and equilibrium will once again be achieved (the classic lesson learned in Economics 101). They write, "The world economy is already slowing. China’s demand for oil, 6.5m bpd in the second quarter, is forecast to slip to 6.3m in the third, according to the IEA. America’s petrol consumption, seasonally adjusted, fell by about 200,000 barrels a day between April and July."

I'm not certain that this is an ideal situation, and I cannot find respite in the fact that only a slumping economy will drive down oil prices. Though our short term (and perhaps medium term) energy crisis might not be easily solved, it's clear that we must take drastic steps today to become energy independent.

John Kerry has not fully flushed out a plan that can truly diminish our need for foreign oil, but he is much closer to the right track than the President. Strict fuel efficiency standards must be enacted immediately so they can be implemented as soon as possible, and the government must invest heavily in both new technologies and in the building of many more power plants (preferably from clean sources like wind and solar energy). I'm afraid if we don't make these changes soon our economy--and that of the world--will slip into a much deeper rut than the one in which it finds itself today.

Democrat Brad Carson 41.8%, Republican Tom Coburn 35.2% (last poll Coburn lead of 43.7-36.5)

The leader in the polls in the U.S. Senate race in Oklahoma has changed for a second time as Brad Carson (D) takes the lead in what is expected to be one of the closest and most watched Senate races in the country.

Soonerpoll.com, a public opinion research firm in Oklahoma City, conducted the telephone poll of 412 statewide general election voters yesterday. The survey had a margin of error of 4.8%.

Since Labor Day, Tom Coburn (R) has found himself on the defense from comments he has made at several events, from calling state legislators ‘crapheads’, defining this race as one between ‘good and evil’, and questioning whether all members of the Cherokee Nation are Indians.

Just yesterday, a story surfaced about a former patient of Dr. Coburn who claims he sterilized her without her permission.

On behalf of Carson, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee began television ads attacking Coburn for not voting to fund the Oklahoma City cross-town interstate project while in Congress. When asked recently by the media if he supported the project, Coburn replied, ‘You bet.’

Carson’s own TV ads have focused on his efforts for seniors, including his support for a prescription drug plan in Medicare. Meanwhile, Coburn’s TV ads have focused on legislation he authored in Congress to reduce wasteful spending and his efforts to reduce the national debt.

Nice!

The AP's Mary Dalrymple and Nedra Pickler just posted a highly speculative piece on who might be selected to join John Kerry's cabinet should he be elected in November. The list of names, though of no suprise to many in the blogosphere, is nonetheless interesting and worth reading through. Dalrymple and Pickler write,

The Kerry campaign is keeping quiet so far about specific prospects for Cabinet positions if the Massachusetts senator should win the presidency in November. But that doesn't mean no one is thinking about it.

"If he's doing his job as a candidate, he should be already developing lists of names," said Paul Light, a New York University professor and expert in presidential transitions.

Kerry has been trying to lure undecided voters with a decidedly moderate message and has said he might appoint Republicans to important positions. But Shirley Anne Warshaw, a presidential scholar at Gettysburg College, said that might provoke tension in a new administration.

"It looks good on paper. It looks good to the public. It is not a strategy that works in reality," she said.

Dalrymple and Pickler proceed to offer a few names as possibilities for each cabinet position. They include:

• State: Richard Holbrooke, Joe Biden, George Mitchell and Lee Hamilton.
  
• Defense: Wes Clark, Tony McPeak, Carl Levin, Gary Hart, Warren Rudman, Ike Skelton, John Warner and John McCain.
  
• Justice: Jamie Gorelick, Deval Patrick, Eliot Spitzer, Jennifer Granholm, Janet Napolitano, Joe Lieberman and Eric Holder.

There is much more information in the article.

I think it would be helpful for Kerry to provide at least a sketch of who might be in his cabinet to give him more surrogates to help him fight to win the White House. Although this might leave an opening for attacks by the Bush crowd, in my mind the positives of such an approach would dwarf the negatives.

If I haven't yet been able to convince you that Oregon will not be close in the upcoming election--that almost all factors indicate a substantial Kerry win (unless there is a national landslide in the other direction)--you should read this article from today's edition of the Salem Statesman Journal which shows the state Democrats yet again pulling ahead of their competition. The AP report carried by the paper reads as follows:

Democrats are leading Republicans by roughly 2-to-1 in efforts to register new voters for the November election, according to newly released voter data.

Registration figures released from the Oregon Elections Division on Wednesday show that 74,403 people have added their names to the voter rolls from January to Sept. 1.

Of those new voters, 33,667 are Democrats and 16,801 are Republicans.

The rest have registered as independents or minor-party members.

Statewide, voter registration has climbed 4 percent since January.

[...]

Considering that Oregon went to Democrat Al Gore instead of George W. Bush in 2000 by 6,765 votes out of 1.53 million cast, both parties and the interest groups are counting on new voters to help make the difference in what could be another tight election.

Anyone who tells you that the efforts to register tens of thousands of new Democratic voters across America by groups like America Coming Together hasn't already had an immense impact on this election has a fundamental misunderstanding of American politics.

In blue states like Oregon, the Democrats have been substantially increasing their lead in voter registration. In key swing states, as well, like Nevada--a state in which Republicans have traditionally comprised a larger part of the electorate than their rivals--the Demcorats have taken new leads in registration for the first time in years.

As you read traditional polls that indicate a tied race right now (and especially if you read that Bush is leading by 14 points in an outlier poll), remember that the electorate has significantly changed since the last election--and it appears as though the Democrats are the main beneficiaries of this swing.

What is more, as Jimmy Breslin pointed out in Newsday yesterday, current telephone polling does not call the nation's 169 million cell phones, and a significant number of young Americans no longer use normal landlines. The segment of young voters who only own cell phones is much more pro-Kerry than the rest of the electorate, and as a result could be widely underrepresented in all current polling.

Most likely, if Breslin's theory proves true, Democrats will see a great boost in the polls unforseen in the nation's polling; even if these young voters are not missed in the polls, the Democrats' new-found lead in new registrants could nonetheless prove insurmountable for the GOP, and thus Kerry could win by a more healthy margin than prophesized by any pundits on election night.

• Alaska, Sep 9-11: Bush 57%, Kerry 30%, Nader 5%, Other 3%, DK 5%
  
  
• California, Sep 11-13: Bush 41%, Kerry 52%, Nader -, Other, DK 1% 6%
  
  
• Colorado, Sep 10-13: Bush 46%, Kerry 45%, Nader 3%, Other 1%, DK 6%
  
  
• Hawaii, Sep 7-11: Bush 41%, Kerry 51%, Nader 4%, Other 0%, DK 4%
  
  
• Idaho, Sep 8-10: Bush 59%, Kerry 30%, Nader 3%, Other 1%, DK 7%
  
  
• Kentucky, Sep 8-12: Bush 57%, Kerry 39%, Nader 1%, Other 0%, DK 4%
  
  
• Maine, Sep 8-10: Bush 44%, Kerry 48%, Nader 4%, Other 0%, DK 5%
  
  
• Maryland, Sep 7-9: Bush 43%, Kerry 52%, Nader 2%, Other 0%, DK 3%
  
  
• Massachusetts, Sep 10-13: Bush 27%, Kerry 64%, Nader, Other - 1%, DK 7%
  
  
• Minnesota, Sep 10-12: Bush 45%, Kerry 47%, Nader 2%, Other 1%, DK 5%
  
  
• Montana, Sep 7-9: Bush 60%, Kerry 32%, Nader 3%, Other 0%, DK 5%
  
  
• Nebraska, Sep 9-12: Bush 61%, Kerry 30%, Nader 2%, Other 1%, DK 6%
  
  
• North Dakota, Sep 7-10: Bush 62%, Kerry 33%, Nader 1%, Other 0%, DK 4%
  
  
• Oregon, Sep 10-13: Bush 45%, Kerry 47%, Nader 2%, Other 1%, DK 5%
  
  
• Rhode Island, Sep 11-13: Bush 30%, Kerry 58%, Nader 4%, Other 1%, DK 6%
  
  
• South Dakota, Sep 8-12: Bush 58%, Kerry 39%, Nader 1%, Other 1%, DK 2%
  
  
• Utah, Sep 10-13: Bush 64%, Kerry 27%, Nader 4%, Other 1%, DK 5%
  
  
• Vermont, Sep 9-12: Bush 40%, Kerry 50%, Nader 4%, Other 0%, DK 7%
  
  
• Washington, Sep 9-13: Bush 44%, Kerry 51%, Nader 2%, Other 0%, DK 3%
  
  
• Wyoming, Sep 9-11: Bush 65%, Kerry 29%, Nader 2%, Other 0%, DK 3%

------

600 completed telephone interviews among likely voters
in each state on dates in September (Sep),
MOE ± 4 percentage points, 95% of the time

Last week Bush lead 54-38 among likely voters and 52-40 among registered voters in a poll from Pew, but now Kerry is coming back quickly and Bush's bounce has all but disappeared. According to Pew's latest poll conducted September 11-14 among 725 likely and 1,002 registered voters has Bush leading 47-46 among LV and the race tied 46-46 within RV. I have a feeling the media won't play up the "Kerry is surging" theme, however.

There are lots of great internals in the poll, so check it out.

This is not turning out to be a very good for the GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate in Oklahoma. First, word came on Monday that his substantial lead in the polls had disappeared as Democrat Brad Carson took a small 2 point lead. Later, the national media began picking up a story that first ran on Salon.com regarding a possibly fraudulent act Coburn took as an doctor (the Washington Post and the New York Times examine how Dr. Tom may have sterilized a woman against her will, then billed medicare in a possibly fraudulent act). Now, as the Republican continues to reel, it appears as though a comment he recently made may have offended one of Oklahoma's largest constituencies.

Channel 5 Oklahoma is reporting that Coburn made extremely insensitive comments regarding Native Americans in the Sooner state. Under the headline "Cherokee Nation Leaders Criticize Coburn Comments", they write:

Cherokee Nation leaders say remarks made by U.S. Senate candidate Tom Coburn during a town hall meeting in Altus last month were divisive and offensive to Indians.

In a news release Thursday, tribal leaders quoted Coburn as calling treaties between the United States and Indian Nations "a joke" and "primitive agreement(s)."

"I mean, this is a joke," Coburn was quoted as saying. "It is one thing for us to keep our obligations to recognize Native Americans, but it's a totally different thing for us to allow a primitive agreement with the Native Americans to undermine Oklahoma's future."

The Cherokee Nation also released audio of Coburn's comments.

"I'm a Republican and it's hard to understand why Tom Coburn takes pride in dividing Oklahoma and ridiculing people," said Chad Smith, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Coburn is losing it, and it appears as though all Carson has to do is stay out of his opponent's way. While this race may have seemed unwinnable at one point, this is rapidly becoming a state that the Democrats could (and maybe should) win. Go to BradCarson.com to support the Democrats' chances at retaking the Senate.

Bush's Convention Bounce Vanishes as Race Tightens

Sen. John Kerry and President Bush are now enjoying almost equal levels of support, according to the latest Harris Interactive poll.

Immediately after the Republican convention in New York, several polls showed Mr. Bush jumping ahead of Mr. Kerry with a clear lead of between six and 11 percentage points. There's no such 'convention bounce' for the president in the latest poll by Harris.

The Harris poll, conducted by telephone Sept. 9-13, shows Sen. Kerry leading Mr. Bush 48% to 47% among likely voters nationwide. The poll also found that a slender 51% to 45% majority doesn't believe that Mr. Bush deserves to be re-elected.

The previous poll in which likely U.S. voters were asked which candidate they preferred showed Messrs. Kerry and Bush tied 47% to 47%. That survey was conducted before the Republican National Convention in New York City, which ended earlier this month. An earlier poll in June indicated a Bush lead over Mr. Kerry of 10 percentage points, at 51% to 41%.

The latest poll was conducted within the U. S. among a nationwide cross section of 1,018 adults. It has a margin of error of +/-3 percentage points.

That's not entirely surprising to me given the latest Economist poll which showed Bush up by only one. As both polls are within the margin of error, they should both be considered a tied.

This week's Economist/You Gov poll has just come out and it contains a lot of good news for John Kerry. The poll was conducted September 13-15, with 2052 respondents ("Registered to vote": 1764, "Will definitely vote": 1608), and the MoE is +/- 2%.

Suppose the election for President were being held TODAY. Who would you vote for? George W. Bush, the Republican; John F Kerry, the Democrat; Ralph Nader, an independent candidate, or someone else?

Total; Def to vote (Last week, Two Weeks ago)
George Bush 46% (46, 44); 48% (47, 46)
John Kerry 45% (45, 45); 46% (46, 49)
Ralph Nader 1% (1, 2); 1% (1, 2)
Someone else 3% 3%
Would not vote 0% 0%
Don't know 4% 2%

As of now, what do you think you are most likely to end up doing on November 2?

(Total, Def to vote)
George W Bush 47% 49%
John F Kerry 46% 47%
Ralph Nader 2% 1%
Someone else 4% 3%
Not vote at all 2% 0%

In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?

(Total, Def to vote)
Satisfied 38% 42%
Dissatisfied 56% 55%
Don't know 6% 3%

Do you approve or disapprove of the way President George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

(Total, Def to vote)
Approve 43% 46%
Disapprove 52% 51%
Don't know 5% 3%

Which outcome would you most want to see from the next election?

(Total, Def to vote)
A Bush victory and Republicans controlling Congress 37% 42%
A Bush victory and Democrats controlling Congress 6% 5%
A Kerry victory and Democrats controlling Congress 38% 40%
A Kerry victory and Republicans controlling Congress 6% 6%
Don't Know 12% 6%

There has been essentially no movement in the polls in the last two weeks; each candidate gained one point in the polls. As a result, the Economist poll thus shows that not only is Bush not pulling away--as some polls might indicate--his lead is actually within the margin of error, so the race could essentially be considered a tie.

Although Bush is leading in this poll, he received a paltry bounce from the Republican National Convention; it was minimal at most, and in fact smaller than Kerry's bounce, according to the Economist's polling. The fact that there has been this small of a movement might in fact bode well for Kerry.

For everyone celebrating Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, I wish you a Shanah Tova, or happy new year! I'll be back to posting later, but for now, I'm getting ready to eat some brisket.

For full coverage of Oregon politics, go to my Basie! on Oregon page with news, polling and analysis

---

Yesterday John Edwards made a foray into the Democratic-friendly state of Oregon to talk healthcare and raise some money, and on both fronts he was successful. Edwards left the state with both $500,000 in the bank for the Democratic National Committee and a spate of positive stories in the state's media outlets.

The Oregonian's Jeff Mapes has a front page story in the state's largest paper entitled "Edwards gives Oregon voters dose of battle with Bush over health care." Though it is placed below the fold, it is accompanied by a great picture and nonetheless is featured somewhat prominently (you can see the front page here). Mapes leads with this:

Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards, continuing the new war of words over health care by both campaigns, said Tuesday that President Bush has no realistic plan to expand coverage and control rising costs.

The story is not particularly well-written--it suffers from the "one one hand, on the other hand" type reporting that the Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk so often derides. Nonetheless, it does contrast the Kerry-Edwards plan favorably to the President's plan in many wats, showing how the Democrats offer would cover a significantly larger number of Americans than that of the President.

The Salem Statesman Journal today has three stories on Edwards' trip to the Beaver state befitting their status as the state's top political news source (after all, it is the paper for the state capital). Steve Law pens the main coverage of the Edwards trip, a writeup entitled "Edwards offers dose of optimism." He lead's thusly:

Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards shifted the campaign spotlight to health care Tuesday during his first Oregon visit since being named John Kerry’s running mate.

[...]

Known for his charm, positive demeanor and speaking skills, Edwards has turned up the heat on President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney since Kerry’s recent slip in the polls.

Edwards highlighted Kerry’s $650 billion plan to insure 27 million more Americans, including every child in the nation while deriding Bush’s progress in health care.

“The best I can tell, his plan for the last four years is, ‘Pray you don’t get sick,’” Edwards said.

This article has a much better explanation of the Kerry-Edwards plan without the equivocation evident in the Oregonian piece. Overall, it is a highly positive piece.

The Statesman Journal's Tara McClain also writes up crowd response from the first Edwards rally under the headline "Edwards dazzles Democrat-friendly Oregon City crowd." Among the various audience quotes recorded by McClain:

• “I loved everything about Edwards,” Pfeiffer said Tuesday. “Everything he said, I believe in it.”
  
• “They’re like celebrities to me,” a breathless Andrea Hauge, 18, said after shaking Edwards’ hand.
  
• Elsewhere in the gym, Enrique Arias told friends that his 75-year-old father this year changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat.
  “When he listens to Bush on TV, he feels like he’s listening to (Fidel) Castro,” Arias said of his father, an immigrant from Cuba.
  
• “To me, he’s a guy who’s speaking how he really feels. He’s not just telling you what he wants you to hear,” [Audrey Schackel] said, rarely taking her eyes off the door from which Edwards was to exit. [...] “There he is,” Schackel said, excited. “Look at that smile!”

The Statesman Journal also prints up an interview they had with the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee. It's a good read, if you're interested. Eugene's KVAL-TV, who claims to be "one of only two Oregon television stations to be granted face to face interviews with Edwards" (which I would assume makes the Statesman Journal the other one) also has a good interview with Edwards.

Overall, this was a great trip for Edwards to this Democratic leaning state and it will go far to help ensure that John Kerry gains Oregon's seven electoral votes this year.

For more complete coverage of Oregon politics, visit my "Basie! on Oregon" page.

A story developing out of Oklahoma that's hitting the major papers tomorrow could have a big effect on the race to represent the Sooner state in the U.S. Senate. I first saw the story over at the New York Times, and it looks like the Washington Post has also decided to run with it as well.

In tomorrow's edition of the Post, Lois Romano pens an article entitled "Okla. Senate Candidate Is Accused of Fraud." She leads with this:

One of the most competitive Senate races in the country turned nasty this week, as former GOP congressman and obstetrician Tom Coburn has had to respond to published reports that he committed Medicaid fraud 14 years ago.

The allegation stems from a medical malpractice suit brought by a 20-year-old woman who said that Coburn, without her permission, removed one of her fallopian tubes, which left her sterilized. The case never went to trial, but court documents first reported this week by Salon.com show that Coburn withheld information about the sterilization in submitting a bill to Medicaid for a related procedure involving a troubled pregnancy because the Medicaid program does not cover the sterilization of anyone younger than 21. Coburn said he withheld the information to ensure the woman was reimbursed for the cost of removing the other fallopian tube in which a fetus was lodged.

As I wrote before, I don't know how this story is going to pan out in the state, but it is certainly going to significantly going to affect the race in one way or another. As Carson begins to make a move in the polls (Romano writes that "Carson [is] gaining on Coburn after a month of aggressive Democratic campaigning and advertising -- coupled with a series of odd and controversial comments by Coburn."), this could prove to be just one more in a series of coincidental events that truly hurt Coburn's chances in this highly Republican state. If Carson does end up winning, the Democrats will be in a much better situation to retake the Senate.

A poll out yesterday by Wilson Research Strategies poll for KWTV from September 10-12 shows Democratic Congressman Brad Carson leading former GOP Congressman Tom Coburn by two points in the race to represent Oklahoma in the Senate. The poll shows the race trending Democratic as Coburn has lost almost 10 points over the past month and a half.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg has an interesting article in tomorrow morning's edition of the New York Times entitled "Old Medical Malpractice Suit Roils Oklahoma Senate Race." The piece shows that at least one issue not related to policies or proposals might have a significant effect on the race. Stolberg writes as follows:

Tom Coburn, a family doctor and Republican Senate candidate, is caught in a controversy over claims that he sterilized a 20-year-old patient without proper consent and defrauded the government by withholding information about the procedure.

"I saved the woman's life," Dr. Coburn, a former congressman, said in an interview Tuesday, in which he dismissed the fraud accusation as "a piece of trash." But his Democratic opponent, Representative Brad Carson, said that the charges were serious and that Dr. Coburn should answer them.

I'm not entirely certain what to make of this piece, but I do know that it will have an effect on the campaign. Specifically, this could be extremely damaging for the extremely conservative Coburn because, as Stolberg writes, he "has staked his political career on his reputation as a medical doctor."

This is not a state in which the Democrats deserve to be competitive. Like Alaska and numerous other states, Kerry has no shot at winning Oklahoma's electoral votes, but it nonetheless looks possible that Carson might steal this seat from the GOP. If he can win, as well as Tony Knowles in Alaska (Barack Obama's victory is a foregone conclusion), it will make the Democrat's attempt to retake the Senate much easier.

Lots of polling out today from Survey USA--my favorite pollster (I think they're the most accurate polling outfit)--after they had polls for Ohio, North Carolina and California a few days ago and more polls from Missouri, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, and Kansas the day later with good news for the Democrats. Here ya go:

Florida

• In an election in Florida today, George W Bush defeats John Kerry for president & Democrat Betty Castor edges Republican Mel Martinez for Bob Graham's U.S. Senate seat, according to SurveyUSA poll of 607 likely voters conducted 9/12 - 9/14.
  
• 2 mo ago, Bush trailed by 3 in SurveyUSA tracking. Now Bush is up by 6, 51% to 45%.
  
• Then, Kerry led by 12 among women, now trails by 3. Then, Kerry led by 3 in military households, now Bush leads by 8. Then, Kerry led by 26 in SE FL, now by only 7.
  
• Castor 49%, Martinez 45% today. Martinez up 2 among men, Castor up 12 among women.
  
• Martinez up 2 among whites, and up 20 among Hispanics, Castor up 67 among blacks.
  15% of Bush voters split ticket & cross-over to vote for Democrat castor.

With a margin of error of +/- 4.1%, Bush's lead is significant, so this is tough news for Kerry. The race is still fluid right now, but it appears as though Bush is leading in most recent polls from the state. There is good news, however. The Democrats nearly won the White House in 2000 without Florida, and thus the state is much more important to Bush than for Kerry.

Another piece of good news from this poll is the fact that Betty Castor is leading, even if it's within the MoE. Martinez was bruised in his primary battle against Bill McCollum, and the effects may become evident as more polling is taken in the state.

Nevada

• In an election for President in Nevada today, 49 days to the vote, George W Bush defeats John Kerry 51% to 47% & captures the Silver State's 5 electoral votes, according to SurveyUSA KVBC-TV news poll of 526 likely voters conducted 9/11 - 9/13.
  
• 2 mos ago, Kerry led by 4 in Nevada. 1 mo ago, Bush led by 3 but still was below 50%. In past 4 weeks, Kerry has picked up 1 pt, but Bush has picked up 2 & now is at 51%.
  
• Bush leads by 32 pts among those who attend church regularly. Kerry leads by 14 among those who attend church rarely. Bush up 53 pts among pro-life voters, Kerry up 24 pts among pro-choice voters. Bush up 23 pts among those earning > $80k/year, Kerry up 14 among those earning < $40k/yr. Moderates & independents break for Kerry.

Bush's lead right now is within the MoE of +/- 4.4%, so the race could be considered a tie at this juncture. The big news is that moderates and independents "break for Kerry" in this race, which could have substantial effects on the campaign.

Josh Marshall has the scoop over at Talking Points Memo about an interesting development in the story regarding the documents featured on 60 Minutes II last week. The breaking news comes from this article in the Dallas Morning News. Pete Slover writes thusly:

The former secretary for the Texas Air National Guard colonel who supposedly authored memos critical of President Bush’s Guard service said Tuesday that the documents are fake, but that they reflect real documents that once existed.

Marian Carr Knox, who worked from 1956 to 1979 at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, said she prided herself on meticulous typing, and the memos first disclosed by CBS News last week were not her work.

“These are not real,” she told The Dallas Morning News after examining copies of the disputed memos for the first time. “They’re not what I typed, and I would have typed them for him.”

[...]

She said she did not recall typing the memos reported by CBS News, though she said they accurately reflect the viewpoints of Lt. Col. Killian and documents that would have been in the personal file. Also, she could not say whether the CBS documents corresponded memo for memo with that file.

“The information in here was correct, but it was picked up from the real ones,” she said.

Interesting stuff for those following the story. Basically, the right's defense isn't that Bush served honorably but rather that these memos were forged. This strategy has been highly successful thusfar for the Republicans as they have been able to deflect a lot of the criticism the President may actually deserve. While Bush may not be teflon, he certainly has been dodging a bullet with this story, though time will tell if it ends up actually sticking.

Harball's David Shuster, who you might remember had a brilliant post last week on a number of Vice President Dick Cheney's crazy comments (on forgotten Ebay revenues, on Iraq-Al Qaeda claims, etc.), has another great post on Hardblogger this morning. Shuster writes in "What's up with Dick Cheney?" thusly:

Last week, I blogged about some of Vice President Cheney's more memorable quotes. Now, the Vice President has given us another incredible quote, even hotter and more controversial than previous offerings. And today, when I called Republicans on capitol hill to read them the quote, several of them suggested, "he (Cheney) couldn't possibly have said that." Well, we've double checked the transcripts... and he did.

Talking about European nations and the war on terror, Cheney said, and I quote: "I think some have hoped that if they kept their heads down and stayed out of the line of fire, they wouldn't get hit. I think what happened in Russia now demonstrates pretty conclusively that everybody is a target. That Russia, of course, didn't support us in Iraq, they didn't get involved in sending troops there, they've gotten hit anyway."

The first two sentences are not the issue... it's the third sentence -- the idea that if Russia had only supported us in Iraq, had only sent troops there, they wouldn't have gotten hit. That is insane [emphasis added]. Russia got hit because of their conflict in Chechnya. It had nothing to do with whether they did or did not send troops to Iraq. Every Republican I've spoken with today has expressed "displeasure" at the vice president's remarks Furthermore, most of them are feeling awfully "queasy" about Mr. Cheney using the murder of hundreds of children in Russia to make an argument about U.S. involvement in Iraq.

It's good to see at least one person in the mainstream media realizes how "insane" the Vice President is.

There is an interesting piece in today's Wall Street Journal that provides insight--both current and historical--into the polarization of the partisan press. Alan Murray (whom I saw while working in DC this summer) pens an article entitled "As in Olden Days, U.S. Media Reflect The Partisan Divide" which I recommend you read if you're interested in news bias.

Murray writes that increasingly news outlets (Fox News a prime example) have decided to create a narrow but deep group of viewers by playing to the partisan leanings of certain segments of Americans. Though people complain about this as something new, Murray believes otherwise:

We've been here before. Author Ron Chernow's fascinating biography of Alexander Hamilton details how Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson carried out their vicious feuds in proxy newspapers, under assumed names such as Publius and Civis. New research by economic historian Claudia Goldin shows that a partisan media was in full flower when the Credit Mobilier scandal burst open in early 1870s. At the time, Ms. Goldin says, only 11% of major newspapers even claimed to be independent.

He writes further of the dilemma facing the press, in a very fair way (at least in my opinion).

Clearly, mainstream newspapers and networks suffered over the years, if not from intentional bias, at least from a process of self-selection that leads liberal-leaning Americans to choose journalism school over, say, business school. Just as clearly, the rise of Fox News, which sought out right-leaning anchors to push a conservative line, hasn't just been an antidote to this leftward tilt of the mainstream press, but a catalyst for the new era of partisan journalism [emphasis added].

Murray concludes by citing surveys showing Americans don't actually want a partisan press system.

For those of us who still value the independence and nonpartisanship of Progressive Era journalism, there is some reason for hope. Andrew Kohut, director of The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, says most Americans still say they want objective journalism, not partisan spin.

If Mr. Kohut is right, the current media conflict could lead to a better, more balanced, but still fiercely independent press. A decision by Dan Rather and CBS to launch a thorough investigation into the Bush documents would be a step in the right direction.

I highly respect Andrew Kohut and the Pew Research Center, but I'm skeptical that Americans' desires for a more independent media correspond to their actions. More and more people are turning to sources that do not offend their partisan sensibilities, regardless of whether the facts are on their side or not. They will cry bias at any moment at which not everything is going their way (much like fans at a basketball heckling the referee). I think that's why so many people are joining the blogosphere, to be frank.

I don't necessarily think it's a terrible thing to have partisan-centered media, as long as people realize that they're going to be getting a Republican slant when they watch Fox News and their going to get a Democratic slant when they read DailyKos or Eschaton. In fact, I think the past few years have shown that the blogosphere has in fact played an essential role in bringing up a number of issues and stories previously untouched by the mainstream media (the Trent Lott story comes to mind).

It will be interesting to see the role bloggers play in the future--whether the Right's top-down approach prevails or if the left's vast myriad of editorialists (from me to Josh Marshall) succeeds. Either way, I think the blogosphere will continue to alter the way people receive information in the coming years and in doing so it will change things for the better.

3. This parody of a Democratic Party dream of a newspaper headline leading the best selling daily in America (USA Today): "Medical Costs Eat at Social Security." LINK

That's quite amuzing.

According to Rasmussen Reports, the only firm tracking the race nationally on a day by day basis (also a firm that provides a larger sample--3,000 likely voters over three days--than just about any other firm), the race has tightened significantly as of late. Over the past two days, President Bush's lead has diminished from 3.1% to a mere 0.6%, which is well within the +/- 2% MoE.

Here are today's results:

George W. Bush 47.1%
John Kerry 46.5%

Rasmussen's analysis is as follows:

Senator Kerry has not been ahead in the Tracking Poll since August 23. Eighty-eight percent (88%) of Bush supporters say they are certain that's how they will vote in November. Eighty-four percent (84%) of Kerry voters are that certain.

A number of the unfairly weighted polls commissioned by places such as Time and Newsweek assume that Kerry's support is significantly softer than Bush's; this number was even in the double digits for the Time poll. Rasmussen is more realistic, however, in showing that Kerry has almost as large of a driven base as Bush.

If Kerry goes into election day down 10 points among certain voters as Time indicates, there's no way he's going to win. If Rasmussen is right however, and the amount of certain voters in each candidate's base is the same, Kerry will have a great shot at winning, as the Democrats (or more precisely progressive groups like ACT and the New Democratic Network) have a much better-tested GOTV system. When you combine this with the fact that Kerry was up 12 points in battleground states in the latest Investor's Business Daily poll, I think you'd have to say that John Kerry has a much better shot than the pundits might have you believe.

The new likely voter poll from Investor's Business Daily conducted September 7-12 shows the race tied at 47% apiece. The race is also tied, though at 46%, when Ralph Nader is thrown into the mix.

Interesting finding in this poll:

The poll also has good news for Kerry. Among independents, Kerry leads Bush by 10 points, 48%-38%. His lead is 12 points — 51%-39% — in battleground states.

The latest Rasmussen poll shows a similar result as President Bush leads John Kerry by less than a point (47.2-46.4).

No... John Kerry isn't ahead in this extremely red state. In fact, he is trailing by 30 points as of the last poll conducted in the state.

There is good news in that same poll, however. According to a Wilson Research Strategies poll conducted for KWTV from September 10-12, Democratic Congressman Brad Carson (whose campaign website link is located under my "Campaigns to Watch" section) is now leading his Republican competitor, the highly conservative former Representative Tom Coburn in the race for the US Senate. Though his 39-37 lead is well within the +/- 4.4% MoE, Coburn has been consistently trending down in the state while Carson has gained some new support.

In the poll taken immediately before the Republican Senatorial Primary for Oklahoma released on August 4, Coburn led Carson in a theoretical matchup by a 46-37 margin. The September 7 poll had similar results showing a Coburn lead of 42-36. As a result, it appears as though Coburn has lost upwards of 9% in the last month or so while Carson has moved up a bit.

This is not a state in which the Democrats deserve to be competitive. Like Alaska and numerous other states, Kerry has no shot at winning Oklahoma's electoral votes, but it nonetheless looks possible that Carson might steal this seat from the GOP. If he can win, as well as Tony Knowles in Alaska (Barack Obama's victory is a foregone conclusion), it will make the Democrat's attempt to retake the Senate much easier.

In a front page article in tomorrow's edition of the Washington Post, Mike Allen analyzes the costs of the proposals made during President Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. The results are striking.

You might have heard Bush attacking Kerry for proposing $2 trillion in new initiatives during any number of his stump speeches. Allen finds that not only might this claim be exaggrated, but Bush's proposals would actually add more to the long-term debt of the United States. Allen writes:

The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade.

A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan [emphasis added].

Allen proceeds to list the sheer costs of Bush's proposals, each of which more bloated than the last. He writes of Bush's pledge to make his tax cuts permanent, which "would reduce government revenue by about $1 trillion over 10 years, according to administration estimates" [emphasis added]. He writes of the President's plan to privatize social security which "could cost the government $2 trillion over the coming decade." He continues:

And Bush's agenda has many costs the administration has not publicly estimated. For instance, Bush said in his speech that he would continue to try to stabilize Iraq and wage war on terrorism. The war in Iraq alone costs $4 billion a month, but the president's annual budget does not reflect that cost.

Bush's platform highlights the challenge for both presidential candidates in trying to lure voters with attractive government initiatives at a time of mounting budget deficits. This year's federal budget deficit will reach a record $422 billion, and the government is expected to accumulate $2.3 trillion in new debt over the next 10 years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported last week.

Although not on the scale of Ross Perot in 1992, it looks like deficit hawks are not happy about the deterioration of America's vast 10-year surplus--which could have wiped out the nation's entire national debt--that has occurred under the President's watch.

Some fiscal conservatives who are dismayed by the return of budget deficits found little to cheer in the president's convention speech. Stephen Moore, president of the conservative Club for Growth, said that Bush's Social Security plan was money well spent by saving the system in the long run, but he added that Bush "has banked his presidency on the idea that people don't really care about the deficit, and he may be right."

"He's a big-government Republican, and there's no longer even the pretense that he's for smaller government," Moore said.

I'm not certain why Kerry is not hitting this hard. One of his main achievements in 19 years in the Senate has been fighting successfully to curtail government deficits in the 1980s and 90s.

It would be tough to switch messages at this point, but I think there are a lot of Americans--main street conservatives, Perot moderates--who are extremely concerned about deficits right now. I think it would behoove the Democratic nominee to speak to these people's concerns because they are a large bloc who could realistically swing into the blue column come November. With the support of these swing voters--and in particular the millions who voted twice for Ross Perot in the 1990s--Kerry would be able to win quite comfortably, in my estimation.

According to Rasmussen Reports, the race for Senate in South Dakota as Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle desperately seeks reelection is once again effectively tied, though the poll shows a small lead for challenger John Thune. Here's what Rasmussen writes:

In his bid for re-election, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle has fallen slightly behind former Congressman John Thune.

The latest Rasmussen Reports survey finds the Republican challenger earning 50% of the vote while Daschle attracts 47%. However, the 3-point advantage for Thune is well within the survey's 4.5 point margin of sampling error.

Rasmussen also shows Democratic Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth ahead by the same margin for the statewide seat, but like the Senate poll, the race is effectively tied due to the MoE.

Though this polling is somewhat different than an earlier internal poll for Daschle showing the Democrat leading, it's safe to say that this race will remain tight throughout the remainder of the campaign season and we might not know who actually won until after election night (remember Thune lost two years ago to Senator Tim Johnson, but we didn't find that out until the next morning). If you can (and want to), you should go to Daschle's website to give what you can to ensure the Democrats win back the Senate (there are also links to other races you might consider supporting on the right).

In an interesting AP article out yesterday, David Bauder writes about how MSNBC host Chris Matthews' "heavily caffeinated style" could end up saving the sparsly watched cable news network. Bauder writes:

Matthews is hot right now, and not just under the collar.

"Hardball" and parts of Matthews' Republican convention coverage gave his network some surprising ratings victories over CNN. The former print reporter whose volume and energy switches never seem off may just be the man to lead MSNBC out of the wilderness.

"Politics is certainly on the top of the minds of people and Chris is the best person on cable doing it," said his boss, NBC News President Neal Shapiro.

Bauder then proceeds to look at two recent instances in which Matthews tussled with guests in highly entertaining ways perfect for television. Most recently, during the Republican National Convention Matthews was nearly challenged to a duel by Senator Zell Miller. Bauder continues:

Matthews' much-replayed interview with Miller came less than two hours after the Democratic senator spoke to the convention in favor of President Bush, torching Bush's Democratic opponent, John Kerry.

Displeased with the line of questioning, Miller told Matthews to "get out of my face."

"I wish we lived in the day where you could challenge a person to a duel," Miller said.

Said Matthews, in retrospect: "I was as fascinated by the experience as the viewer was."

In another recent show, Matthews took right wing pundit Michelle Malkin to task for making baseless accusations about John Kerry. Bauder writes:

During a discussion of the Swift boat controversy, Malkin said there were "legitimate questions" about whether one of Kerry's war wounds in Vietnam were self-inflicted.

"What do you mean by self-inflicted?" Matthews shot back. "Are you saying he shot himself on purpose? Is that what you're saying?"

Malkin dodged the question. So Matthews asked it again. And again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

Eleven times. Matthews grew increasingly angry, and Malkin exasperated. It was gripping television.

He eventually cut her off.

"We are going to keep things clean on this show," Matthews said. "No irresponsible comments are going to be made on this show."

[...]

Political professionals aren't naive in how they plant seeds of doubt with little factual basis, he said. If they're not challenged, many viewers will simply believe what they heard, he said.

Bauder then sums up the possible benefits MSNBC may derive from selecting Matthews to host their campaign coverage.

Having Matthews as host on big political nights has proven wise for MSNBC. It allows his love of politics to shine through yet corrals his heavily caffeinated style, simply because he's forced to involve and interact with other panelists. The same is true for Matthews' successful Sunday chat show.

Coupled with the smart production choice of outdoor studios like Herald Square, MSNBC's coverage made CNN seem sleepy by comparison.

MSNBC will take Matthews on the road to outdoor studios this fall surrounding the debates. His daily show will turn into "Hardball Horserace" on Fridays, offering a week's review of what happened on the campaign trail.

I personally think that Matthews--and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann--provide some of the best coverage on cable TV, and I definitely prefer their programs to anything available on either Fox News or CNN. With the exception of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, I think Matthews and Olbermann have the best political programs on cable, and for that reason I try to watch as much of them as I can.

Martin Frost, a Democratic Congressman leveled a great comeback at his rival in the campaign to keep his seat, Republican Pete Sessions (also a Congressman) after Sessions called the War in Iraq a "game." Check out the link.

While working relentlessly to portray Democratic Sen. John Kerry as a "flip-flopper," President Bush has his own history of changing his position, from reversals on steel tariffs and "nation-building" to reasons for invading Iraq.

[...]

Just as GOP efforts to question Kerry's military record in Vietnam helped revive nagging questions about Bush's service in the Air National Guard, the "flip flop" attacks on Kerry could boomerang against an incumbent running on his record and reputation as a straight talker.

link

I hope you didn't mind my little foray into editorializing in my last post. I generally try to just report on the political news and polls and analyze them without throwing in too many of my political beliefs, other than general left of center moderation.

I had been thinking about writing this piece to come out around the anniversary of 9/11 because I think it's important to talk about what America's roll in the world is and should be. Hope you didn't find it too horrible!

In August of last year, a massive power outage swept across the Northeast and millions were without electricity. Throughout the region, skyscrapers were rendered unusable (people could not get to the 64th floor easily or quickly by foot), thoroughfares impassable (no traffic lights meant much more traffic), and cities uninhabitable (without refrigeration and fresh water pumped in, people simply could not continue to reside in them indefinitely). In this moment, we were provided with a glimpse into the future; this is how a civilization in decay and disrepair (perhaps our own civilization, one day) might live.

While all of this was occurring, by sheer coincidence I found myself in Córdoba, Spain, a city that shows these same scars centuries of a civilization in decline. Though many history books might not mention it, Córdoba was the greatest cosmopolitan city in the world just over 1,000 years ago--the New York City of its times.

During the time of Islamic rule, as the seat of the Muawiya Caliphs, Córdoba was the largest city and embodied the most sophisticated culture and the most developed bureaucracy in Europe. [...] The 10th century Caliphate of Córdoba was the largest, culturally the most sophisticated polity in all Europe (link).

As I walked through the Mezquita--the Great Mosque--which was at the focal point of the immense Moorish Empire (a highly tolerant nation in which Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side by side in peace and prosperity), I realized that at the same time the denizens of New York and countless other cities and towns in the Northeast were gazing upon our great buildings which were then just as dead as the mosque I was in. With our failed system unable to provide the necessary power, our great buildings were about as useful as the Pyramids, the Parthenon, the Coliseum, or the Mezquita.

This was a wake up call for me. Getting a glimpse of what our country might be like a thousand years on as I stood in the greatest building in the capital of a once great nation like our own, I could not help but be aware of our mortality as a nation.

Too many Americans, believing that our country will last indefinitely--unlike any other previous powerful nation--believe that no matter what we do or no matter how poorly we do it, it will always work out in the end for us. Certain theoretical (or more precisely ideological) schools believe that we can continually use our strength to make the world a better place--for us at least. They will try to tell you that they no the way to make the world safer, and that following any other path will lead to great disaster and calamity. Inherent in this belief is the idea is that this approach--imposing our will on to all other countries--is necessary to making our nation immortal. This concept is flat out wrong.

I am neither pro-war nor anti-war; rather, I--like most Americans--find myself somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, feeling it was both important to rid the world of a tyrant who supported terrorism (even if it wasn't from Al Qaeda) but also not so important that it was worth straining our alliances and thus weakening our standing in the world. If one thing is clear, it is that we are weaker today than we have been since the fall of the Berlin Wall and perhaps even before that. We may be strong economically and militarily, but unless we wish to coerce all of our neighbors on this planet indefinitely, we cannot solely rely on these two areas forever. To survive, we must learn to cooperate with the rest of the world... it is that simple.

I, unlike some on the right, do not believe that electing a specific candidate this election is the key to our continuing viability. Nevertheless, I know that this is a crucial election in which tough choices need to be made, and I believe that these choices have never been more clear.

Our country, just like each and every one us, is mortal regardless of the outcome of this election. Some day our nation will not exist--just like the Moorish empire, the Romans, the Macedonians or any great power. I hope that day comes in many centuries and not in a few short years, but the fact remains that we will not last indefinitely. That having been said, the choices we make today will have many effects in the years to come and it is thus important to choose wisely.

As I'm sure you can tell by now I do not believe that fighting much the rest of the world, rhetorically or militarily, is the most effective way for us to thrive in the future. This is an opinion, and you have every right to disagree with me. However, if you believe that the ideology which states that imposing our will on other nations is the key to our immortality is fundamentally flawed, your choice in this election could not be any simpler. Not only do you have to vote (this goes with out saying), you must also give your time and/or money to ensure that the candidate whom you support is elected. I have made my decision already and hope that I am doing all that I can to see the best man and the best ideas in this election prevail because I believe that New York City does not have to be the same as Córdoba, Persepolis, Tenochtitlan, or any other shell of a great city any time soon.

It's always interesting to me when I find two seemingly unrelated stories that seem to fit together quite well. It appears as though that's the case today as the New York Times's John Broder looks at dirty campaigning in recent history, a nice addendum to the Olbermann piece yesterday.

Under the heading "Republicans Pack Punch. Democrats Take It. (For Now)", Broder writes up a discussion of whether or not the two parties stoop to the same low level when campaigning. Broder leads thusly:

Do Republicans play a rougher game of politics than Democrats?

The question has been tossed around since Vice President Dick Cheney, in apparently unscripted remarks, suggested last week that electing the Democratic ticket in November would invite a devastating terrorist attack.

The Democrats cried foul, but of course there's no referee in politics. And neither party has a monopoly on ruthless, unscrupulous campaigning. It just seems that the Republicans are, today at least, more adept at the black art of attack politics, according to historians and flummoxed Democratic partisans.

"I don't think there's any question they're better at it than we are," said James Carville, the Democratic warrior-consultant who admitted to being envious of his Republican counterparts' merciless brand of campaigning. "But I'm fixing to do what I can to change that slightly."

He continues by provinding some historical context.

Lee Atwater, President George H. W. Bush's chief strategist in 1988, left the battlefield scattered with corpses, including that of the hapless Tom Turnipseed, a South Carolina Congressional candidate in 1980 who had the misfortune of running against one of Mr. Atwater's clients. Mr. Atwater was accused of whispering to reporters that Mr. Turnipseed had undergone psychiatric treatment in college, and when Mr. Atwater was asked about it, he said he would not respond to allegations from someone who had been "hooked up to jumper cables."

In 1988, Mr. Atwater engineered the senior Mr. Bush's victory with unrelenting attacks on Michael Dukakis, including the advertisement featuring Willie Horton, the black convicted murderer who escaped on a weekend furlough and raped a white woman while Mr. Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts.

George W. Bush and his chief strategist, Karl Rove, learned the Republican rules of the game during that successful campaign, and perhaps learned even more in the elder Mr. Bush's loss in 1992 to a more agile and hungrier team of Democrats led by Bill Clinton.

Mr. Clinton and his rapid-response style of campaigning were a throwback to an era of more hard-nosed Democratic politicians. Lyndon Johnson was one of the dirtiest campaigners Texas ever produced. His House and Senate campaigns were legendary for their viciousness, and his presidential campaign advertisement against Barry Goldwater in 1964 of a girl plucking a daisy before a nuclear mushroom cloud makes Mr. Cheney's remarks this week sound like a reading of "The Pet Goat." John and Bobby Kennedy, with their mobster friends, their union muscle and their rum-running father, were hardly pushovers in the contact sport of electoral politics.

The crux of the piece comes in the last sentence.

"Who's worse?" asked Fred I. Greenstein, a presidential scholar at Princeton. "It depends on what day it is."

Interesting story.

Keith Olbermann over at MSNBC.com's Hardblogger has a great piece that gives historical context to the dirty politics that we are seeing today.

The largest lie contained in the charges and counter-charges by the arm’s length anti-Bush and anti-Kerry campaigns (with small c’s) is that this is all somehow new to presidential politics, as if the broad smear and the mining of the candidates' distant past were not part-and-parcel of American history. The commentators who bemoan the corruption and debasement of the process are as disingenuous as some of the ads, and as convincing as Claude Rains announcing he was shocked, shocked, to discover gambling going on in Casablanca.

The Connecticut Courant, then a house newspaper of the Federalist Party, anticipated Dick Cheney by 204 years when it wrote during the election of 1800 that the election of Thomas Jefferson (“the drunkard and enemy of religion”) would doubtlessly foment Civil War. By 1802, the Richmond Recorder had reported the rumor of Jefferson’s liaison with Sally Hemmings (to hell with Monica Lewinsky— that’s a story with staying power).

More to the point of the Killian memos: in 1844, campaigning on behalf of Whig nominee Henry Clay, kingmaker Thurlow Weed composed a newspaper article quoting a third party who’d supposedly seen the slaves of Democratic nominee James K. Polk branded like cattle with his initials. The Whigs later sent letters to Democratic leaders bearing the forged signatures of other Democratic leaders, forecasting horrific defeat and urging them to stay home from the polls. There was a damaging forged letter ascribed to James Garfield in 1880 (he won the election anyway, but was assassinated, and if there’s a lesson in there I don’t know what it is), and another forgery that contributed to Grover Cleveland’s defeat in 1892.

There is no conclusion here about the legitimacy of the Killian letters, although I will conclude by confessing that the Political Science Fiction explanation (these were literally designed to be discredited) appeals to me, if only out of a wish that these hack politicians would actually come up with something new and not merely repeat tactics which constitute the sole living legacy of long-defunct parties like the Federalists and the Whigs, for cryin’ out loud.

The more of Olbermann's stuff I read and see, the more I like him. It's too bad it's Brian Williams and not him taking over for Brokaw after the election.

Riley Research Associates, a Portland-based polling firm, came out with a poll earlier this week (Tuesday, I believe) that showed the race for President in Oregon all but tied, with Kerry at 46%, Bush at 45% and Nader (who might or might not be on the ballot) at 1% (MoE of +/- 4.35%). I had thought this outfit was a little pro-GOP (their previous poll, in May, showed Bush up by a 45-39 margin), and I hadn't even looked at the poll because it so differed from the Zogby poll of the state that came out at about the same time showing Kerry up by nearly 10 points in the state.

I finally got around to looking at the poll today and found that it actually has a lot of interesting information, even if I don't agree with the Presidential poll. To be specific, the Riley poll has the first public polling in Oregon's Congressional districts I have seen thusfar in the election cycle, even if the MoE for each is +/- 10% (which is ridiculously high).

[There] appears to be little evidence that President Bush’s coattails extend to Oregon’s Congressional races, as the incumbents seem to have clear leads in each district polled.

CD 1
In this contest, with 18% undecided, incumbent David Wu enjoys a significant lead over challenger Goli Ameri (58% vs. 24%).

CD 4
In this southern Willamette Valley district, another incumbent Congressman Peter DeFazio leads challenger Jim Feldkamp 69% to 23%, with just 9% undecided.

CD 5
In CD5, challenger Jim Zupancic has made inroads against veteran Representative Darlene Hooley, but trails 33% to 49%, with 19% still undecided.

There's lots of internals on all of these races, though I'm not sure how relevant they are given the small sample for each district (about 100 voters in each).

The big surprise of this poll is how big of a lead David Wu holds right now. Though he has a lot of money and name recognition, the Republicans have really targeted him with the Iranian-American Ameri (both VP Cheney and Speaker Hastert have done fundraisers for her) and had hoped to pick off the seat in Oregon. This poll indicates they have a long way to even get 40% of the district's vote. Hooley's lead, though smaller, is still encouraging.

If you want more information on these races, check out my "Basie! on Oregon" page for my full analysis of the state's politics.

September 11, 2004--In the sixteen-Battleground States that are likely to determine the winner of Election 2004, President Bush and Senator Kerry are now tied at 47%. A week ago, coming right out of the Republican National Convention, the President was ahead, 48% to 45%.

[...]

This data is based upon interviews conducted over the three nights ending September 10. Every night, Rasmussen Reports interviews 1,000 Likely Voters across the nation to create a three-day rolling average based upon 3,000 Likely Voters. Roughly one-third of all voters live in the sixteen Battleground States.

The 16-Battleground States are Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin, Arizona, Minnesota, Oregon, Iowa, Arkansas, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Maine, and New Hampshire.

Link here.

The good news keeps on rolling in, and I'll try to keep you apprised of it all.

This comes from a comment I made over at dKos on the roll of 3rd parties in American politics.

• Andrew Jackson essentially ran a third party campaign that eventually took over the Democratic party in 1828.
  
• The Republican Party, founded in Ripon, WI in 1854, completely reshaped politics within the next six years.
  
• The Populist Party essentially took over the Democratic Party in 1896. In the process, it brought many new causes to the forefront of American politics.
  
• The Progressive Party also had dramatic effects on American politics in changing both the Democratic and Republican parties. We have them to thank for Women's Suffrage, the direct election of Senators, the recall, referrendum and ititiative processes, and many more innovations. Their labor policies later formed the basis of FDR's platform.
  
• In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a movement that was essentially a third party (Northeastern liberals) took over the Democratic Party and forced real Civil Rights action.
  
• In 1964, the Goldwater movement--again a third party movement within a major party--usurped the reigns of the GOP, moving the party from a Northeastern moderate party to a Southern and Western conservative party.
  
• In 1992, Ross Perot ran as an idependent on a platform of fiscal conservatism (balancing the budget) and social liberalism (he was pro-choice, among other things); in 1996, Bill Clinton ran for reelection on a platform of fiscal conservatism (balancing the budget) and social liberalism (he was pro-choice, among other things). One could thus say that Perot's movement took over the Democratic Party in the 1990s, at least policy wise.

With all of this in mind (I'm sure I'm leaving things out, too) I'd say that third parties have played a major part in our political process, do today, and will continue to in the future. As long as they are able to tackle significant issues not previously handled by the two major parties (whether it was slavery in the 1850s-60s or balancing the budget in the 1990s or whatever else in the future) they will always be an integral part of America's political system.

As I indicated in my last post, there's no use in looking at national polls that include Ralph Nader because the consumer activist isn't even going to be on half of the nation's ballots. Accordingly, I'm not even going to look at the new poll from Time (or even provide a link here) because it's ridiculous to have Nader on the poll but not Michael Badnarik (Libertarian), Michael Peroutka (Constitution) and David Cobb (Green)--who will all appear on ballots in many more states than Nader--in the poll as well.

There is a new poll out from Newsweek that is usable, however, as it includes Registered voters and doesn't include Mr. Nader. Here's what they have to say:

In a two-way trial without the Nader ticket, among registered voters, Bush/Cheney are ahead of Kerry/Edwards 50 to 45 percent, with five percent of registered voters undecided. One week ago in the two-way race, Bush/Cheney were ahead of Kerry/Edwards 54 to 43 percent with three percent undecided [emphasis added].

It appears as though Bush's so-called "convention bounce" isn't holding whatsoever, and just like the SBVf"T" ads did to Kerry, the controversy over his TANG service is withering away the American people's trust in him (Newsweek says the electorate is split 42-42 over Bush's service--or lack thereof). This is not a good poll for the President at all as it shows that his semi-surge in the polls was not in fact real.

I suppose the real question is if the media will be as forceful with a "Bush's post-convention support disappears fast" story as they were with the "Bush surges" story...

Yesterday, we heard that Ralph Nader would not in fact be on Florida's ballot in November. I need not remind you that Nader's presence on the ballot four years ago drastically affected the race for the state's electoral votes.

Today, we hear that Nader will not be on the ballot of another key swing state. Today's edition of the Arizona Republic reports that the consumer activist will not be Arizona's ballot because he failed to get enough signatures.

Although Nader might be on Oregon's ballot (which pains me greatly, though I don't think he'll make a huge difference) and he most likely will be on the Michigan ballot, the fact remains that the "independent" candidate might not even be on the ballot in half of the states this year, so I find it quite quizzical that Nader is still listed in most national polls (it just doesn't make sense!).

I wrote some time ago that the real third party challenge isn't going to come from the left of the political spectrum, but rather from the right. In July, I looked at the effects Constitution Party nominee Michael Peroutka and Libertarian Party nominee Michael Badnarik are going to have on George W. Bush's reelection efforts. A bastion of the right seems to forsee this possibility, too.

I hate linking to uber-right wing sites often, but in this case I think it's worth mentioning an article in the Moonie press, the Washington Times. On Thursday, reporter Steve Miller leads his story entitled "Third parties seen as threat to Bush" thusly:

Three third-party presidential candidates have ballot access in more states than Ralph Nader and pose as much, if not more, of a threat to President Bush than to Democratic contender Sen. John Kerry.

The Libertarian Party is now on the presidential ballot in 44 states and the Constitution Party in 35 states, both more than the 24 that Mr. Nader has managed amidst a concerted effort from state Democrats to thwart his bids.

The Green Party, on whose ticket Mr. Nader ran in 2000 and received 2.8 million votes, is now on the ballot in 28 states.

As Kos mentioned over at DailyKos recently (I can't find the exact quote), there is a real possibility of Nader coming in 6th in this year's Presidential race. Nominees for the three other minor parties mentioned in the Times piece could realistically get more votes and thus have more of an effect on the race as Nader. Miller quantifies this in a few more paragraphs:

"We are playing to the conservatives who do not have a party to vote for," said Libertarian presidential hopeful Michael Badnarik. "For example, Republicans have traditionally stood for smaller government, but this president has not adhered to that standard."

The Bush bolstering of the so-called war on drugs, the Patriot Act and the proposed constitutional amendment to ban homosexual "marriage" are all at odds with the Libertarian party line.

Accordingly, Mr. Badnarik has appeared in homosexual-rights parades, has called the move to combat in Iraq a venture based on "fairy tales" and said that "the war on drugs is more of a threat to our liberties than drugs themselves."

And he has done so unfettered by Republicans, even when a recent poll in New Mexico found him earning the nod from 5 percent of voters [italics added].

Kerry might be worrying about Nader's role in this race, but that's a good thing for him. The real question in this race is why the President and his handlers aren't nearly as concerned by the two parties that appear to be outflanking him on the right.

I think it was the handful of science, literature and art questions that did me in today as I was not selected to be a contestant on Jeopardy! Perhaps another time, though.

Thanks for your support and thoughts, though.

I'll get some blogging in for you soon...

I'm in Culver City right now awaiting my interview for Jeopardy with some time to kill, so I thought I might do a little blogging (unfortunately, internet access here is a bit expensive, so I have to keep this short).

There is a new poll out from Rasmussen Reports, a polling outfit that has been tracking the race for the presidency all year. According to Scott Rasmussen, President Bush leads John Kerry by a 47.5-46.1 margin; with the MoE of +/- 2.0%, this means the race is essentially tied. What is more, this poll--with a substantially larger sample than that of any of the "major" polling outlets (like Newsweek, the AP, etc.)--shows that President Bush has not in fact jumped out to a large lead.

The race remains quite close, so we'll just have to wait and see how things develop in the few remaining weeks.

Going in for my tryout now... I'll let you know how it went.

So, I'm trying out for Jeopardy! tomorrow morning in Culver City, so wish me luck. How do you think I'm going to do?

Lots of polling out today from Survey USA--my favorite pollster (I think they're the most accurate polling outfit)--after they had polls for Ohio, North Carolina and California yesterday with lots of good news for the Democrats.

Missouri

• In an election in MO today, George W Bush can't shake John Kerry, but Dem Claire McCaskill zeroes in on GOP Matt Blunt for Governor, according to SurveyUSA poll of 660 likely voters 9/7-9/9. Republican Kit Bond defeats Nancy Farmer for U.S. Senate [57-37].
  
• Bush 48%, Kerry 46% today, statistically the same as tracking polls on 8/18 & 7/9.
  
• Kerry up 6 in St Louis, up 13 in KC, but down 22 in Central MO & down 25 in Ozarks.
  
• Kerry up 26 in union HH's; Bush up 11 in non-union. Independents break 5:4 for Bush.
  
• Blunt 48%, McCaskill 47% today, a 4-pt gain by McCaskill in past 3 wks. Blunt up 6 among men, McCaskill up 3 among women. Blunt up 13 with whites, down 73 with blacks.
  
• 13% of Kerry voters go Blunt. 14% of bush voters go McCaskill. Dem up 2 among indys.

This definitely contradicts the eggregiously incorrect polling in the state that put Bush up by 14 points. This state will be close, and this poll accurately shows the status of the race for Missouri. With the margin of error at +/- 3.9 %, this should be considered a tie.

Pennsylvania

• In an election in PA today, John Kerry defeats George W Bush by the narrowest margin & Republican Arlen Specter comfortably retains his U.S. Senate seat, defeating Joe Hoeffel, according to SurveyUSA poll of 697 likely voters conducted 9/7 + 9/8 + 9/9.
  
• Today it's Kerry 49%, Bush 47%. 5 wks ago, after DNC, before Swift Boats & RNC, Kerry led by 12, now 2. Bush leads by 4 in military HH's; Kerry leads by 12 in non-military HH's. Bush up in Western PA, NE PA & 'The T'. Kerry only up in SE PA, but by 27 pts.
  
• Today it's Specter 51%, Hoeffel 33%, with 15% choosing other or undecided. Compared to identical poll 5 wks ago, Specter is up 2, Hoeffel down 1. Hoeffel trails by 3 pts in SE pa, but Specter is up 16 in Western PA, up 28 in NE PA, up 32 in 'The T'. 31% of Kerry voters split ticket & cross-over to vote Republican in U.S. Senate contest.

This isn't a terribly great poll for the Democrats as Kerry's lead is well within the +/- 3.8% MoE (so the race is essentially tied right now). Although I like Arlen Specter, his 51% isn't terrific for an incumbent, and I'd like to see a poll with the Constitution Party nominee (a former national party chairman, I believe) thrown into the mix (past Const. candidates have fared very well in the state, drawing mostly disaffected conservative Republicans). That having been said, for the Democrats to make this seat competitive, Hoeffel must do better in the SE of the state (Philly area) and get his very low name ID up.

Indiana

• In elections in Indiana today, George W Bush defeats John Kerry to capture 11 Hoosier Electoral Votes, Republican Mitch Daniels defeats Democrat Joe Kernan for Governor & Evan Bayh is re-elected to U.S. Senate, according to SurveyUSA poll taken 9/7 - 9/9.
  
• Republican Bush wins 60% to 36% today. Democrat Bayh wins 64% to 28% today.
  
• For Governor, Daniels wins 53% to 41% today, a GOP pickup. Daniels up 2 in Northern IN, up 10 in Central IN, up 14 in Indianapolis, up 25 in Southern in. Daniels up 7 with women, up 15 with men. Kernan up 11 in union HH's. Daniels up 21 in non-union.
  
• 16% of Bush voters cross-over to Kernan. 11% of Kerry voters cross-over to Daniels.
  
• Moderates break 7:5 for Kernan. Independents break 5:4 for Daniels.

Not much to say here other than it's good to see that in this ultra-Republican state a Democrat like Bayh is so highly popular (remember, I called on Kerry to pick Bayh as his running mate some time back). Otherwise, I think the Governor's race will tighten up a bit, but we'll have to wait and see how that plays out.

Kentucky

• In an election in Kentucky today, George W. Bush defeats John Kerry, Republican Jim Bunning is re-elected to the U.S. Senate, defeating Dan Mongiardo, and an amendment to the state constitution to define marriage between one man & one woman passes 3:1, according to SurveyUSA poll of 665 likely KY voters conducted 9/7 + 9/8 + 9/9.
  
• Bush wins 56% to 39% today, identical to a SurveyUSA poll released on 8/16. Kerry support confined to pro-choice liberals in urban areas. Bush in command elsewhere.
  
• Bunning wins 54% to 35% today. 4 wks ago, Bunning was up by 24 pts, now up by 19 pts.
  
• The marriage amendment passes 72% to 25% today. It has led 3:1 since tracking began.

Again, there isn't too much to say about this solidly Red state. If there is good news to take out of this poll, it's that Dr. Dan has cut baseball hall of famer Jim Bunning's lead by 7 points in the last month or so. I don't think he has a great shot at winning the seat, but if he can get up past 40%, Bunning will have to start spending heavily.

Kansas

• In an election in Kansas today, George W Bush convincingly defeats John Kerry & captures Kansas's 6 electoral votes, according to SurveyUSA poll of 604 likely voters conducted exclusively for KWCH-TV 9/7 + 9/8 + 9/9.
  
• Bush wins 60% to 35% today. Compared to an identical SurveyUSA tracking poll 10 weeks ago, Bush is up 4 points, Kerry is down 1. Bush had led by 20 pts, now 25 pts.
  
• Bush holds 91% of his Republican base. Kerry holds 87% of his Democratic base -- but there are twice as many Republicans as Democrats in Kansas. [Independents] tie at 45%.
  
• Kerry up 8 among those who attend church rarely; regular church goers back Bush.

Not too much good news in this poll, but that doesn't mean that there's any bad news as Kansas is about as red as they come (they haven't sent a Democrat to the Senate in 66 years).

Stay tuned for more poll coverage and political news and analysis here at Basie!

Colleen McCain Nelson has an extremely interesting piece in today's edition of the Dallas Morning News, of all places. Under the headline "Like rival, Bush sometimes reverses course", she leads thusly:

The mere mention of John Kerry's name is enough to get it started: the singsong chant of "flip-flop, flip-flop" that echoes through Republican rallies and campaign events across the country. The Republicans have defined the Democratic candidate as indecisive and unreliable while portraying the president as resolute and unwavering.

While this has become a campaign storyline, the reality is that President Bush has not always been a model of consistency. During the last four years, the president's positions on several issues have evolved or completely changed.

Nelson continues the story by recounting a number of instances in which the President flip-flopped his position on an issue. These include the creation of the Homeland Security Agency, the 9-11 Commission, WMD, Osama bin Laden, Nation Building, Gay Marriage and Steel Tariffs (Nelson explains each one relatively in depth).

I am highly skeptical that this meme will continue throughout the media and permeate the electorate, but I nonetheless always find it both amusing and enjoyable when I see that a news outlet is actually telling the truth about the President's record rather than merely repeating his talking points. If anyone you know doesn't like Kerry on account of the fact that he is a "flip-flopper," pass on this article. Who knows... maybe reading such an article from a Texas newspaper will make them change their mind (...or flip-flop, as it were...).

In Zogby's latest poll taken September 8-9 with a margin of error of +/- 3.1% Bush/Cheney leads Kerry/Edwards by a 47-45 margin in a two-way contest, the same margin as the poll two weeks ago. This could be read as a tie as the margin is within the MoE. Following Zogby's battleground poll that generally had good news for KE04, I'd say this poll didn't treat the Dems too poorly. There are also interesting internals over at his site.

Things aren't looking so good for President Bush in the Beaver State. The President and Karl Rove may have delighted yesterday when news came that a Marion County judge has ruled Ralph Nader deserves to be on the Oregon ballot, but the two probably had no idea that worse news was waiting in the wings.

Brent Hunsberger reports on the front page (above the fold) of today's edition of The Oregonian that the state's jobless rate--always high, but previously trending downward--had shot up six tenths of a point to 7.4% in August, a truly horrible number. Hunsberger writes of the consequences of this poor jobs report:

The news surprised economists and threw a wrench in President Bush's campaign to carry Oregon in the 2004 election, political analysts said.

Hunsberger continues to look at the political fallout from this story.

Thursday's numbers could hurt Bush's chances to carry Oregon, political analysts said, at a time the president appeared to be gaining ground. One poll this week suggested Bush had erased Sen.John Kerry's 8- to 10-percentage-point lead in Oregon.

"I think he's an underdog in Oregon in any event, and this is not going to help his chances here," said Tim Hibbitts, an independent pollster in Portland.

Polls show Oregon's economy -- which since November 2000 has had one of the nation's highest unemployment rates -- ranks among voters' top three concerns, along with the war in Iraq and the broader war on terrorism, Hibbitts said. What's more, analysts say, most workers notice the state's monthly jobs figure, especially when the news is bad.

"It makes employed people worried about the economy," said Jim Moore, a political science professor at Pacific University in Forest Grove.

Lisa Sohn, the Kerry-Edwards campaign's communications director in Oregon, blamed the jobs drop on Bush's economic policies, which she said have led companies to outsource jobs and cut health care benefits for middle-class families.

"I think Oregonians are seeing more than ever the need for a new direction," Sohn said.

Tracey Schmitt, regional spokeswoman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, noted that the report shows the state's unemployment rate one point lower than a year ago, with Oregon's economy adding 34,000 jobs since July 2003.

"On the critical issue of the economy, John Kerry's best hope seems to hope for the worst," Schmitt said. "However, his agenda of higher taxes, more litigation and more regulation won't create a single job, nor will his pessimism."

Oregon has been trending Democratic over the past two decades, and recent polling indicates a Kerry lead of nearly 10%, so it doesn't look like the Democratic nominee should have too much trouble in the state. What's more, as Tim Hibbitts said, this jobs report "is not going to help [President Bush's] chances here."

So worry not about Kerry's chances of winning the West Coast (recent polling proves California indeed isn't going to swing for Bush); the Democrat has a solid base of 78 Electoral Votes on the "Left" side of the country. While Kerry can't take this area for granted, it's looking more and more like he can dedicate precious resources to closer states like Ohio and Florida rather than my native state of Oregon.

Indicators measure the nation’s unemployment rate, consumer spending and other economic milestones, but Vice President Dick Cheney says it misses the hundreds of thousands who make money selling on eBay.

“That’s a source that didn’t even exist 10 years ago,” Cheney told an audience in Cincinnati on Thursday. “Four hundred thousand people make some money trading on eBay.”

San Jose, Calif.-based eBay Inc. is an Internet auction site where anyone can sell just about anything, including clothing, cell phones, jewelry, memorabilia, trinkets and automobiles.

Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards responded that Cheney’s comments show how “out of touch” he and President Bush are with the economy.

"If we only included bake sales and how much money kids make at lemonade stands, this economy would really be cooking,” Edwards said in a statement.

Atrios found this in the AP.

Over at MSNBC's Hardblogger, correspondent David Shuster pens an amuzing post on the loose lipped Vice President. As Shuster writes, "Vice President Dick Cheney... bland and boring? Absolutely not."

In the post, Shuster recalls one of Cheney's brilliant comments from today on how the economic statistics belie the actual status of today's economy. He writes,

Today, our Vice President suggested national employment statistics were artificially high and misleading because they miss people who make money on E-bay. Yes, he said "E-bay." Quote: "That's a source that didn't even exist 10 years ago... 400,000 people make some money trading on E-bay." But, how many of them make a living on E-bay? Details, details, details.

In the same speech in Cincinatti (yes, it was the equivalent of a daily double) the Vice President linked Iraq to those responsible for 9-11, (despite the assertion from President Bush last year that there was no connection.) Cheney mentioned the invasion of Afghanistan in which the U.S. punished the Taliban for harboring Al-Qaeda. Then Cheney said, "In Iraq, we had a similar situation." Huh?

Shuster also digs into the archives to pull out some other classics we may have forgotten.

Earlier this week, Cheney suggested that a vote for the Democrats is a vote for another terrorist attack. Quote: "If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is we'll get hit again." Cheney also warned about a return to the "pre 9/11 mindset." Pre 9/11 mindset? As in, ignoring a White House intelligence briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States?"

Four years ago, Cheney offered this in the 2000 VP debate: "I clearly have spent a lot of time in executive positions, running large organizations." He was, of course, referring to his tenure as CEO of Halliburton. The Securities and Exchange Commission is now examining Halliburton's accounting practices and the Pentagon is reviewing Halliburton's overbilling in Iraq.

Speaking of Iraq... just before the war, Mr. Cheney said on Meet the Press in March of 2003, "We know he (Saddam) has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."

As for the welcome U.S. troops would receive (also Meet the Press... and another daily double). Quote: "Now, I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."

Not missing a beat, Shuster reminds us of the best quote of all.

Oh and who could forget the famous greeting Mr. Cheney gave to a democratic critic during the annual Senate photo-op this year. Quote: "Go F (expletive deleted) yourself."

I guess George W. Bush ("Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country") and Donald Rumsfeld ("As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know...") aren't the only ones in the administration who provide fodder for the late night comics.

SurveyUSA, which in my mind is probably the most accurate pollster in the nation (even if you've never heard of them before), has a host of new polls, each of which carries good news. Let's take a look:

Ohio

• In an election in Ohio today, 54 days to the vote, Republican incumbent George W Bush defeats John Kerry 50% TO 47% & Republican incumbent George Voinovich defeats Eric Fingerhut 53% TO 35%, according to SurveyUSA poll of 709 likely OH voters 9/6 TO 9/8.
  
  
• Bush up 20 IN Central OH, up 15 in Western OH, down 16 in Easterb OH. Bush up 12 among whites, down 66 among BLACKS. Bush up 16 in HHS earning > $80K/year. Kerry up 11 in HHS earning < $40K/YR. Indys break 5:4 for Bush. Moderates break 5:3 for Kerry.
  
  
• 22% of those who vote for Kerry split ticket & cross-over to Voinovich. Voinovich up 31 in rural OH, up 20 in suburban OH, up 8 in urban OH. Indys go 2:1 for Voinovich. Moderates tie. Fingerhut up 6 among pro-Choice voters, up 39 among liberals.

As the margin of error on this poll is +/- 3.8%, it could be considered a tie. Although Voinovich has a significant lead, Fingerhut--once a US Congressman--has been steadily, if slowly, slicing away and the Senator's lead.

North Carolina

• In an election in NC today, George W Bush captures NC's 15 electoral votes, but Semocrats keep the Statehouse & keep the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by John Edwards, according to SurveyUSA poll of 587 likely voters conducted 9/6 - 9/8.
  
  
• Today, Bush defeats Kerry 50% to 46%. In identical poll 7/27, before DNC, Bush led by 7. On 8/16 Bush led by 6. Today by 4. Bush up 2:1 with whites, down 18:1 with blacks.
  
  
• Bush up 11 with males, tied with females. West & central NC go Bush. East goes Kerry.
  
  
• Mike Easley had led Patrick Ballantine on 8/16, after GOP primary, by 7, today by 15.
  
  
• Erskine Bowles had led Richard Burr by 8, now by 10. 19% of Bush voters split-ticket.

With the margin of error of +/- 4.2%, this race can also be considered a tie. Additionally, it's increasingly looking like Bowles will have an easier time with Burr than he did with Elizabeth Dole two years ago (this is one Southern Democratic seat the party can hold), and Governor Easley looks to be coasting towards reelection.

California

• In an election in CA today, John Kerry defeats George W Bush 52% to 42%, capturing CA's 55 electoral votes, & incumbent U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer defeats Bill Jones 53% to 35%, according to SurveyUSA poll of 598 likely CA voters conducted 9/6 - 9/8.
  
  
• Bush & Kerry tie among males & whites. Kerry's lead comes from females & minority voters. Bush up 17 pts in Central Valley, up 5 pts in Inland Empire. Kerry up 17 pts in greater Los Angeles, up 32 pts in the Bay Area. Kerry up 5 among independents.
  
  
• 13% of those who vote for GOP Bush peel-off & vote for Democrat Boxer. Boxer up by 3 pts among men, up by 31 pts among women. Boxer up 2 pts among whites, up big among blacks, hispanics & asians. Jones leads in Central Valley, trails elsewhere.

This is good news as the last SUSA poll in the state had the margin much slimmer (the link is no longer on the site, but you can see it in Electoral-Vote.com's California graph). No one really thought CA would be close, but it's still nice to see confirmation that it won't.

There's an interesting article in The Economist this week that's luckily free for web readers (unlike much of their other content). In the vein of Zogby, Rasmussen, Tuxeira and many in the blogosphere, the publication goes through the recent spate of polling, weeding out the outliers and meaningless drivel, to find out what the actual state of the race is.

To begin, let me pass on the following nifty graphic, which explains a lot about the current status of the Presidential campaign and is thus quite useful.



Here's what they write under the headline "How big was the bounce?":

The most dramatic polls were those published immediately after the Republican convention. Among likely voters, a poll by Gallup for CNN and USA Today found Mr Bush seven points ahead; Time put the lead at 11 points; a Newsweek poll gives the same lead among registered voters. No challenger has overcome a deficit that size after Labour Day and come back to win.

All three polls need to be handled with care. Both Time and Newsweek conducted their research while the Republican convention was still going on; so whatever they were measuring, it was not the impact of Mr Bush's acceptance speech, or the convention as a whole.

The Time and Gallup polls surveyed likely voters (likely in the opinion of pollsters). But polls of registered voters are usually regarded as more accurate. The margin among registered voters was lower: eight points according to Time and one point according to Gallup. Newsweek's poll, also among registered voters, used an odd sample—38% Republicans, 31% each for Democrats and independents, when current party registration has Democrats with 33% and Republicans with 29%. All three measures may exaggerate the size of Mr Bush's lead. But they do not invent it. Other polls from the same period show the president ahead, albeit in a much closer race—by two points, according to Zogby, and one, according to both the American Research Group and The Economist's own poll, conducted by YouGov, a British polling firm.

The “bounce”—that is, the difference between Mr Bush's level of support before and after his convention—is also there, again modestly. In our poll and Gallup's Mr Bush increased his vote by two points. That is better than Mr Kerry's non-bounce (his vote actually fell after his convention).

This is great analysis by The Economist save for one point: Their claim that Kerry has a "non-bounce" and that "his vote actually fell after his convention" is not accurate, at least according to their polling.

Kerry had a three point positive bounce in their poll from the week before the convention (Kerry 45, Bush 43 among RV) and the week of the Democratic Convention (Kerry 45, Bush 44 among RV) to the week after the DNC (Kerry 48, Bush 43 among RV). Bush, during the two week period from before to after his convention, had a bounce of just 2% in the Economist/YouGov poll, so Kerry's bounce was in fact larger than Bush's.

The Economist concludes thusly:

This is the first presidential contest since the attacks on the World Trade Centre, and the first since 1972 to take place at a time of war. Normally, elections that take place at a time of war or foreign crisis produce a decisive victory. Until now, the contest has been tied. The question from the polling evidence is whether that may be beginning to change. A big Bush victory, while still not the most likely outcome, has become a real possibility (italics added).

I think that sums up the state of the race perfectly and fairly. It's too bad most of the American media outlets can't be this balanced in their campaign analysis...

In their latest likely voter poll that just came out today, Fox News has President Bush leading 47-45, a statistical tie. Before the RNC, the race was 45-44 for Kerry, so the "Bush bounce" was a mere 3 points (thus within the margin of error). Check out the link for the poll's internals.

You can listen to my weekly jazz show right now (actually in about 10 minutes) over at KSPC.org. The show lasts 2 hours and I'll be playing lots of good jazz.

So if you like good music or you just want to hear what my voice sounds like, head over to the site and listen in. Thanks!

This week's Economist/You Gov poll has just come out and it contains a lot of good news for John Kerry. The poll was conducted September 6-8, with 2702 respondents ("Registered to vote": 2306, "Will definitely vote": 2106), and the MoE is +/- 2%.

George Bush's bounce among registered voters: 1 point (from 45% last week to 46% this week). As this number is statistically insignificant, one should read this poll as no bounce for the President.

Suppose the election for President were being held TODAY. Who would you vote for? George W. Bush, the Republican; John F Kerry, the Democrat; Ralph Nader, an independent candidate, or someone else?

Total; Def to vote (Last week, Two Weeks ago)
George Bush 46% (44, 44); 47% (46, 45)
John Kerry 45% (45, 47); 46% (49, 51)
Ralph Nader 1% (2, 2); 1% (2, 1)
Someone else 3% 2%
Would not vote 0% 0%
Don't know 5% 3%

As of now, what do you think you are most likely to end up doing on November 2?

(Total, Def to vote)
George W Bush 47% 48%
John F Kerry 46% 47%
Ralph Nader 2% 2%
Someone else 4% 3%
Not vote at all 1% 0%

In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?

(Total, Def to vote)
Satisfied 37% 41%
Dissatisfied 57% 57%
Don't know 5% 3%

Do you approve or disapprove of the way President George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

(Total, Def to vote)
Approve 42% 45%
Disapprove 52% 52%
Don't know 6% 3%

Who would you prefer to be in control of the CONGRESS after the next election?

(Total, Def to vote)
Democrats 44% 46%
Republicans 38% 42%
Don't Know 18% 12%

This can poll can only be read one way for the President: ouch. In the first national polls to be taken completely after the Republican National Convention and Labor Day weekend, the President's bounce is negligible (Kerry's bounce was three points among registered voters and Bush declined a point). Additionally, notice his overall approval rating at an anemic 42%!!!!!

There are a lot of very interesting internals in this poll as it tracks almost every important issue on the national scene, so I would highly recommend you going through it if you are a wonk like that. If not, take solace in the fact that the President didn't get a bounce from his convention.

From time to time, I think it's useful to publish some of the scant amount of emails I receive here at Basie! (you can email me whenever you want here). This is one I particularly enjoyed.

Subject: Hi, hippie!

When you get a chance to put down the bong, remember what Churchill said:
"If you're a conservative at 20, you have no heart. If you're a liberal at 40 you have no brain."

At 20, I was an angry, aimless, self-righteous student too, even though I was pretty much a spoiled white kid with no real right to bitch about anything. But times change, people grow (up), and what's really important in life eventually reveals itself.

Mercifully for you, you've still got time to come around. Until then, good luck saving the world.

---

I think the Churchill quote is a little hackneyed, if I don't say so myself, though I suppose if you're conservative you must love it.

What do you think? Am I that liberal?

I might be partisan (I'll admit that), but I don't think of myself as particularly liberal though (ideologically, at least). You read what I have to write... I'd love to get your feelings (and you don't have to be gentle... I don't mind trolls, as long as they're not too nasty).

Joshua Micah Marshall over at Talking Points Memo has posted the entire interview of White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett by CBS for 60 Minutes II. It's a long read, but very interesting nonetheless as Bartlett tries to squirm out of answering any of the difficult questions on Bush's paltry record in Vietnam Era.

Great story in the morning edition of The Washington Post by Michael D. Shear entitled "Bush Faces Fight in Va., Kilgore Says In Letter" that cements Virginia as a swing state in the upcoming Presidential election. Though the commonwealth hasn't given its electoral votes to a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson 40 years ago, polling indicates that it is perhaps the closest state in the South--other than Florida, of course.

Shear writes this:

General Jerry W. Kilgore (R), who is chairman of President Bush's reelection campaign in Virginia, might be changing his mind about whether Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry could win the state's 13 electoral votes.

For weeks, Kilgore has dismissed the idea. At a rally with Bush in Annandale, he called talk of a Kerry victory in the commonwealth "crazy claims" and vowed that "Virginia is Bush country." At the Republican National Convention, he told anyone who would listen that the Democrats were full of hot air.

But in a fundraising letter mailed to Bush supporters last week, Kilgore repeatedly warns that Bush could lose the state in November. A Democrat hasn't won the Old Dominion's electoral votes since 1964.

"The nation is politically polarized like we have never seen before and there is a chance a liberal Democrat can win Virginia in November's presidential election," Kilgore writes. "Many experts will tell you, Virginia is in play."

Later, he says, "polls show [Kerry] is within striking distance of the President."

Democrats in the state pounced on the letter, calling it a major acknowledgment validating their belief that Kerry can become the first Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson to win Virginia.

"It's huge. It's a profound concession," said Laura Bland, the spokeswoman for the Virginia Democratic Party. "There should be no doubt in anyone's mind now that Virginia is a battleground state because Jerry Kilgore has said so."

Larry Sabato, a professor at the University of Virginia and the director of the Center for Politics, said jokingly that "Democrats might want to send [Kilgore] a pair of new shoes -- a pair of flip-flops."

Some analysts may tell you that there is no way that Virginia will be blue this year, and some talkingheads and pundits will say Kerry can't win in the South, but I think this story speaks to the fact that Kerry has a better chance at winning Virginia than any Democrat in recent history. Just look at what Electoral-Vote.com has to say about the state. Even if Kerry forces Bush on the defensive in the state, it will be helpful--though I think the Democrat has a decent shot at taking the commonwealth.

Let's wait and see, though.

In a New York Times Political Memo article entitled "When an Explosive Charge Is Not Handled With Care", Adam Nagourney takes quite a tough stand against Vice President Dick Cheney's newest attack on John Kerry. At a political rally in Des Moines on Tuesday, Cheney had this to say about the differences between Bush and Kerry on the issue of defending America; if John Kerry were elected, "[the] danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating."

In response, Nagourney leads with the following:

Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that the nation was more likely to "get hit again" by terrorists if John Kerry was elected was one of the toughest attacks launched in a presidential election in 40 years.

But Mr. Cheney's latest assault on Mr. Kerry, which startled Democrats and Republicans alike, raised a central question even in this notably ferocious presidential campaign: Is it possible for a candidate to go too far, and alienate the very voters he is trying to court?

In one sign that the answer to that question may be yes, Mr. Cheney's aides were quick to say that he had not meant to be quite so direct in his remarks in Des Moines on Tuesday...

Nagourney continues:

Still, Mr. Cheney's harsh presentation of that argument in Des Moines may well have crossed that line, analysts said, and created potential perils for the White House.

"It's a risky strategy," said Stephen D. Ansolabehere, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "If they feel they have to bring some independent voters into their camp, this is a fine line to walk."

Indeed, polls suggest that independent voters, whom both parties are courting assiduously, are put off by what they might see as crass or exceedingly negative political campaigning. What is more, Republicans have worried that Mr. Cheney's campaign visage is already a little too stern, and that the image of him issuing an alarming warning about a Kerry presidency would hardly help.

[...]

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, said one factor ascribed to Jimmy Carter's loss in 1980 was his remark that that Ronald Reagan's election could mean that "Americans might be separated, blacks from whites, Jews from Christians, North from South, rural from urban."

Though Cheney may have appeared moderate in comparison to the rabidly angry Zell Miller last week during the Republican Convention, the Vice President's true colors shone this week. Kudos to The New York Times for taking the Bush-Cheney campaign to task for such meanspirited comments.

These baseless scare tactics also provided an opening for the Democrats; when an attack is this scurrilous, it can actually be used in the future by the Kerry campaign to defend itself (i.e. they can respond to future claims that he is weak on defense by equating any new attack along these lines as the same thing as Cheney's claim). What is more, it provided a perfect opportunity to compare and contrast campaign styles.

Spencer S. Hsu and Dana Milbank report in today's edition of The Washington Post that John Kerry and John Edwards hit back hard against Bush-Cheney team.

Democrat John F. Kerry yesterday denounced as "outrageous and shameful" Vice President Cheney's statement that Americans risk another terrorist attack if President Bush is not reelected, as congressional Democrats assailed the credibility of a leading administration voice on national security.

Kerry, interviewed in Minnesota by a local television station, said Cheney's statement made it clear that the president and the vice president "will say anything and do anything in order to get elected."

[...]

Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards, meanwhile, called on Bush to repudiate Cheney's statement, saying it was "calculated to divide us on the issues of safety and security for the American people."

This is all a game of the "Republicans' Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics," as Joshua Micah Marshall has put it. The Republican theory is that if the Democrat fails to defend himself against such nasty attacks, he will seem weak--not only in campaign terms, but also in being able to defend America.

This "metadebate"--as Marshall deems it--has often been lost by the Democrats in the past (see Dukakis and Gore... and to an extent the Swiftvet controversy); however, Kerry and Edwards hit back early and hard with all of their surrogates on message, showing strength not only within the race for the Presidency but also the race to defend America. I'm not sure if this new strategy is thanks to Clintonistas Joe Lockhart and Paul Begala or merely a reaction to the unswift response to the SBVf"T" ads. Either way, Kerry has definitely won this news cycle, and it will certainly help him on his way to 270 electoral votes.

An interesting article out in the AP within the last hour provides a sneak peak into the exclusive 60 Minutes II interview with Ben Barnes, the man who got a young George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard. It's a nice companion piece to the CBS News segment and will definitely prolong the shelf life of the Bush/Vietnam issue.

Jim Vertuno leads, "Former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes' recollections over how he helped President Bush get into the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War have evolved over the years from fuzzy to distinct, with him now expressing remorse for what he did." The story continues:

Barnes, a Democrat who was one of the most powerful politicians in Texas in the '60s and '70s, said at an Austin campaign rally for Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) that he was "ashamed" for helping Bush and sons of other wealthy Texans avoid service in Vietnam.

"I got a young man named George W. Bush into the National Guard ... and I'm not necessarily proud of that, but I did it," Barnes said in a video clip recorded on May 27, which was posted on the Internet and touted to media organizations last month just before the start of the GOP National Convention.

[...]

"Reflecting back, I'm very sorry about it, but you know, it happened and it was because of my ambition, my youth and my lack of understanding," he said.

This story is nearly impossible for the White House to spin at this point as they've lost all credibility by continuing to withhold valuable information about the President's service (or lack thereof) during the Vietnam era. Moreover, if you thought the SBVf"T" ads negatively effected John Kerry, you haven't seen anything yet.

As this story begins to gain traction, Bush will be placed in the politically untennable situation