Kerry making scant progress in crucial states. How's that for press spin? Kerry is loosing ground and it's labeled "scant progress". It is also telling that the issues the Democrats have put so much emphasis on seem to matter little to most of the public (as I've said before real stupid campaign choices).

"Disinterest in Vietnam Era
Another strikingly insignificant factor in the voters’ decisions is the mêlée over what both Bush and Kerry did during the Vietnam War era.

In Ohio, for example, eight of 10 respondents said the rival candidates’ Vietnam-era activities would play no role in deciding which candidate to support. Mason-Dixon found almost identical results in the other six states it surveyed.

One constant in the Mason-Dixon polling in all the states is that roughly seven out of 10 Bush supporters said they supported him because they like him very much.

Many self-identified Kerry supporters, on the other hand, expressed ambivalence about their candidate. In Missouri, for instance, one out of every four Kerry supporters said they were voting for him only because they disliked the other candidates, while 39 percent said they’d vote for Kerry because they like him. And in Ohio, 31 percent of Kerry supporters said they would vote for him because they disliked the other candidates; 43 percent of Kerry supporters said they were voting for him because they like him."

And the final critical note from that article: "In the most recent national survey, a New York Times/CBS News poll published Saturday, Bush leads Kerry among likely voters by nine points, 51 percent to 42 percent. The margin of error in the Times/CBS News poll was plus or minus three percentage points."

I also find the following article Polar views of Iraq are defining election on Kerry strategy interesting. Even his own camp realizes he has flipped floped on the war so much he can't attack Bush for starting it.

"Two-phase plan for Kerry
With some Kerry advisers convinced he cannot win a debate over whether the United States should have gone to war, given Bush's relentless attacks on Kerry for shifting his positions on the war, the Massachusetts senator has settled on a two-phase plan to refocus the debate. Aides say he will first challenge the president's optimistic assessment of conditions in Iraq and then draw a sharp contrast with Bush over getting the United States out of the country within four years."

What was it Bowser said about being negative? Kerry's real big on the support the troups angle isn't he? Full scale badmouthing is about to begin. As I've said before that's fine if you have a real solution and you paint an accurate picture. We've all seen lately how little interest the press has in painting an accurate picture. I can't wait to hear what Kerry's solutions are.

This is also telling

"Two problems for Kerry
Kerry has run into two problems of his own making, aides say: He voted to authorize the war in 2002, says today the war is wrong but will not take back his vote; and he has yet to detail a markedly different strategy than Bush's for ending the conflict. This has allowed the president to argue — with great success, Democrats say — that Kerry and Bush basically agreed on the need to go to war and see eye to eye on how to get out.

Bush boxed Kerry into a situation where the Democratic nominee was "running in the same circles on the same questions," said Michael McCurry, the former White House spokesman under Clinton who was brought aboard last week to sharpen Kerry's message. Moreover, polls show the president has convinced a large number of voters that Kerry is a flip-flopper whose word cannot be trusted."

Funny how so many of his supporters see him as the anti-war candidate rather than as the inept war candidate that those of us planning to vote against him see him as.

Of course the bad news for Bush is the situation in Iraq can easily deteriorate to the point it costs him the election. He has got to maintain the lead in public opinion as to who can best handle the conflict. He's toast if he loses it because it's one of the few key issues he has a major lead on.

Regards,
Mark