Poll Shows Tie; Concerns Cited on Both Rivals (Bush Approval 44%) (NYT)

[VolcanoJen]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/politics/campaign/19campaign.html?hp&ex=1098244800&en=4ef5a1dffa389c00&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Two weeks before Election Day, voters hold a sharply critical view of President Bush's record in office, but they have strong reservations about Senator John Kerry, leaving the race in a tie, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

Mr. Bush's job approval rating is at 44 percent, a dangerously low number for an incumbent president, and one of the lowest of his tenure. A majority of voters said that they disapproved of the way Mr. Bush had managed the economy and the war in Iraq, and - echoing a refrain of Mr. Kerry's - that his tax cuts had favored the wealthy. Voters said that Mr. Kerry would do a better job of preserving Social Security, creating jobs and ending the war in Iraq.

But a majority of Americans continue to see Mr. Kerry as an untrustworthy politician who will say what he thinks people want to hear. More than half of respondents said they considered him liberal, reflecting a dominant line of attack by Mr. Bush this fall.

<snip>

The Times/CBS poll was conducted over the four days after Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry concluded the last of their three debates. Some other polls taken during that time have shown Mr. Bush in a slightly stronger position among what they described as likely voters. The variations reflect the difficulty of determining who is going to vote, particularly in a campaign in which both sides have invested so many resources in registering new voters.

<snip>

Mr. Kerry is in better shape than he was when the debates began, when the Times/CBS News poll found him trailing Mr. Bush, 42 percent to 50 percent. But this poll and others suggest that he is having difficulty turning strong discontent with the state of the country into support for his candidacy.

Earlier LBN thread (by xyboymil) on the New York Times/CBS Poll, here:

CBS News Poll: Bush 47-Kerry 45, Bush job approval (low 40's now!)

[Bucky]

1. "a dangerously low number "? What danger, that democracy will work?

Ugh. I really loathe this kind of subtle spin, trying to make the reader identify with the president instead of just representing the facts w/o slant. It reminds me of how the Supremes stopped the recount because it might cause harm to Bush's inailenable right to take over his daddy's job.

Sorry, NY Times, but I don't find that 44% approval rating nearly "dangerous" enough.

[Alexander]

2. Kerry's in the same boat Reagan was in in 1980.

The joke was that if someone chased you down a dark alley with a gun, and pointed it at your head and asked "Reagan or Carter?", you were to respond "Shoot."

It wasn't until the weekend before the election that people got really fed up with Carter and voted him out en masse.

Same thing with Clinton and Bush Sr.

Same thing with Kerry and Bush Jr.

It's all about the incumbent. Voters frequently hold their nose when voting for the challenger, and do so reluctantly, but they do so nontheless. That's what will cause Kerry to win.

[VolcanoJen]

3. Really? Now, see, that's interesting!

I was still in junior high during Reagan vs. Carter, but I remember watching it closely, since our social studies teachers pretty much forced us to.

I wasn't a grown-up, so I wouldn't have caught that last-minute absolute shift of momentum. More info, please, if you don't mind, Alexander! This kind of historical information gives me a little spark. :D

[grasswire]

4. that's what ...

...LA Times political reporter Ron Brownstein and Christian Science Monitor reporter Bill Simon said today. They said that the incumbent always loses people during the last days of a race. The incumbent always slips then.

That's why Kerry will win. However, unless the win is decisive, we'll be in overtime for months, I fear.

[VolcanoJen]

6. Recounts are part of Rove's game

He's a master of them, and perfected this tactic long before the 2000 Election.

Take, for example, Alabama Supreme Court Justice Perry O. Cooper, one of Rove's more famous clients, running against Democratic incumbent Earnest "Sonny" Hornsby for Chief Justice, back in 1994. After running notorious smear ads against Hornsby, and still losing the election, Rove decided to declare victory anyway. Over a bitterly contested year later, his candidate, Cooper, was declared Supreme Court Justice.

Read the entire article, if you haven't already. Definitely food for thought when it comes to Rove.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200411/green

Excerpt:

Newspaper coverage on November 9, the morning after the election, focused on the Republican Fob James's upset of the Democratic Governor Jim Folsom. But another drama was rapidly unfolding. In the race for chief justice, which had been neck and neck the evening before, Hooper awoke to discover himself trailing by 698 votes. Throughout the day ballots trickled in from remote corners of the state, until at last an unofficial tally showed that Rove's client had lost—by 304 votes. Hornsby's campaign declared victory.

Rove had other plans, and immediately moved for a recount. "Karl called the next morning," says a former Rove staffer. "He said, 'We came real close. You guys did a great job. But now we really need to rally around Perry Hooper. We've got a real good shot at this, but we need to win over the people of Alabama.'" Rove explained how this was to be done. "Our role was to try to keep people motivated about Perry Hooper's election," the staffer continued, "and then to undermine the other side's support by casting them as liars, cheaters, stealers, immoral—all of that." (Rove did not respond to requests for an interview for this article.)

The campaign quickly obtained a restraining order to preserve the ballots. Then the tactical battle began. Rather than focus on a handful of Republican counties that might yield extra votes, Rove dispatched campaign staffers and hired investigators to every county to observe the counting and turn up evidence of fraud. In one county a probate judge was discovered to have erroneously excluded 100 votes for Hooper. Voting machines in two others had failed to count all the returns. Mindful of public opinion, according to staffers, the campaign spread tales of poll watchers threatened with arrest; probate judges locking themselves in their offices and refusing to admit campaign workers; votes being cast in absentia for comatose nursing-home patients; and Democrats caught in a cemetery writing down the names of the dead in order to put them on absentee ballots.

As the recount progressed, the margin continued to narrow. Three days after the election Hooper held a press conference to drive home the idea that the election was being stolen. He declared, "We have endured lies in this campaign, but I'll be damned if I will accept outright thievery." The recount stretched on, and Hooper's campaign continued to chip away at Hornsby's lead. By November 21 one tally had it at nine votes.

Read more...

[Kukesa]

10. Hope is on the way! n/t

[timezoned]

5. Okay so here's what we have to do

Start a positive campaign about Kerry.

Sound surprising? It's what's been missing.

I think in all honesty, it's time to give this guy a break. The best I've seen, outside of the official campaign literature, is still tainted with the "well he's not Bush at least" flavor.

The guy is fantastic. He was born to this job. I don't mean in breeding or money (he wasn't rich) I mean his character.

See? Shocking to hear? What's more shocking is that I'm starting to actually see it that way. Standing up after Vietnam took incredible guts. It was unheard of when he did it, for a naval officer. We forget that.

Hell, standing up to go through this crap now takes more guts than I'd have in a million years. Can you imagine?

Rove is known to attack a candidate's strengths. So to see Kerry's strengths look for the opposite of what they say.

Kerry is principled and not bound by partisan politics. He "Crosses the isle" , that's the phrase people use for him in the Senate.

The Kerry Mystique (I know, I know, take a moment to get used to it)

Let's start it here.

[lfs5]

7. IS THERE A WAY TO GET THIS OUT??? TURN THAT CONCERN ON BUSH!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1329540,00.html

So what is up with the US President, and why is this election so crucial not only for America but for the world? I have been examining videos of his first 1994 debate with Ann Richards, the Governor of Texas, who he was about to supplant, and of his 2000 debates with Al Gore. In his one and only debate with Richards a decade ago, Bush was fluent and disciplined; with Gore, he had lost some of that polish but was still articulate, with frequent invocations of his supposed 'compassionate conservatism'.

It is thus hard to avoid the conclusion that Bush's cognitive functioning is not, for some reason, what it once was. I am not qualified to say why this is so. It would not be surprising if he was under enormous stress, particularly after the 9/11 atrocities in 2001, and I gather this could explain much, if not everything.

But I have heard wild speculation in Washington that he is suffering from a neurological disorder, or that the years of alcoholism might finally be taking their toll on his brain.

It does not help that Bush now lives in a positively Nixonian cocoon. He does not read newspapers; he sees television only to watch football; he makes election speeches exclusively at ticket-only events, and his courtiers consciously avoid giving him bad news.

A senior Republican, experienced and wise in the ways of Washington, told me last Friday that he does not necessarily accept that Bush is unstable, but what is clear, he added, is that he is now manifestly unfit to be President.

This, too, is a view that is widely felt, but seldom articulated and then only in private, within the Republican as well as Democratic establishments in Washington.

[JoFerret]

8. Kerry in a landslide: current Electoral Vote: Kerry 284 Bush 247

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

[Shadder]

9. Go back and look at the map close

He has the EV lead due to a tiny 1% lead in the most current poll in Florida. We cannot and must not count on Florida going Kerry. However, if Iowa (7 EV) was moved from a tie to Kerry (which I think it will go for Kerry) and Ohio (20) is moved to Kerry (again, I also project this) then whatever happens in Florida (27 EV) is of no real matter. This change makes the projected total 284 - 254. This would also take the Colorado question out of the picture as well.

If Kerry is smart he goes back into Missouri (11 EV) and puts more focus on New Mexico (5 EV), two current red states that could be carried without too much work. In the case of New Mexico that seems to flip back and forth every poll. If this happens, then you have a landslide.

[BenDavid]

11. To folks that live in N.C.,

According to our affiliates on the ground, if we can increase the Democratic voter turnout in Wake County, North Carolina by just 15%, then we can take North Carolina.

Are they crazy? No. A new NC poll has Kerry behind by only 3 pts.

So, if you live in N.C. or have friends there do all we can because Erskine Bowles(D) needs to be elected the new Senator from N.C.