Bush's incredible shrinking lead

Bush's incredible shrinking lead
By Dan Payne  |  October 9, 2004
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/09/bushs_incredible_shrinking_lead/
NATIONAL POLLS show presidential race unchanged. But state polls tell another story.
Very red states. On Los Angeles Times interactive map (www.latimes.com), red (Republican) states are really red. George Bush way ahead in 21; average margin: 22 points. He's got 40-point cushion in Utah. (Must've been that Mitt Romney speech at RNC.) Bush has 177 electoral votes, with 270 needed for victory.
John Kerry's big blue states are California, Illinois, and New York, plus eight others in Northeast, good That's 153 electoral votes.
Upswing in swing states. Kerry has to win every tossup state that Al Gore carried four years ago. Kerry's moving up in all of them. In Washington, Kerry's up by 10 points; Oregon, up 10; New Mexico, up 3-11; Minnesota, up 8; Michigan, up 10; New Jersey, up 3-8; Iowa up 7; Wisconsin, up 2 1/2; and Pennsylvania, up by 5-7. If Kerry runs the table on these, he'll have 255 electoral votes. To get to 270, he needs to pocket Ohio (20).
Florida dreaming. Kerry has to overcome Bush brother Jeb, ballot mischief, cheating on overseas military ballots, major GOP absentee voting program, Ayatollah Rove's evangelical jihad, disenfranchisement of African-American voters. Desperate Bushes may steal Florida again. Only this time, results won't be close.
The newly enrolled. Not sure what to make of surge in newly registered voters. Are they Bush haters? Support Bush's war? Fundamentalist Protestants? Angry gays? Young voters? Woodstock generation? Studies of nonvoters have shown they would've voted pretty much same way as voting peers.
Poles apart. In first debate, Bush chided Kerry for not mentioning Poland's role in coalition in Iraq. "My opponent says we didn't have any allies in this war," Bush said. "What's he say to Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland?" American Progress Report says, "Kerry may not have to say anything, as Kwasniewski on Monday announced he was hopeful that 2,500 troops serving in Iraq would be withdrawn next year." Australians may withdraw forces as soon as today if opposition party wins elections. US troop deaths: 1,069.
Milli Vanilli? Salon.com asks "Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry?" TV camera behind Bush showed solid object under Bush's jacket. "Bush not known to wear back brace or pack [heat]," said Salon. "Was the bulge under his well-tailored jacket a hidden receiver, picking up transmissions from someone offstage feeding the president answers through a hidden earpiece? Does the device explain why the normally ramrod-straight president seemed hunched over during much of the debate? . . . Debate officials said microphones were mounted on lecterns, and the commission put no electronic devices on the president or Senator Kerry."
VP debate was draw. Dick Cheney wasn't as boring as I had expected; John Edwards wasn't as lively as I had hoped. Cheney kept his lies straight on foreign policy, but clueless on domestic front. Edwards came alive on problems at home. But seated, he couldn't use his courtroom moves. If Edwards's goal was to look like he could handle VP job, he did.
Fox fakery. Carl Cameron, Fox's tres cool political "reporter," got caught posting made-up, juvenile quotes about John Kerry on Fox's website. Cameron attributed to Kerry things he never said: "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great?" Fox said Cameron was "reprimanded." I'd make him write every day on Fox website, "I wear women's pantyhose."
Aren't you people listening? Why do so many Americans still support Bush on Iraq? People, THERE WERE NO WMD. David Kay, Bush's top weapons inspector said so in January. Charles Duelfer, chief of CIA's weapons hunters, just issued definitive 1,000-page report that says Saddam had no stockpile of WMD for entire decade leading up to Bush W's attack. 9/11 Commission, which Bush selected, found no "collaborative relationship" between Al Qaeda and Saddam. Bush's Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted his UN testimony on Iraq's nuclear capability was "inaccurate and wrong, and in some cases deliberately misleading."
America jobbed. Companies added only 96,000 jobs in September, fewer than economists forecast. AP says economy now has 800,000 fewer jobs overall than when Bush took office.
October surprise. Pakistan President Musharraf should expect call from Bush. "Mushy? Time to wrap up Osama bin Laden. We need him for what I call perp walk. What do you mean, you don't have him? Find some tall, skinny guy with beard and shoot him full of holes."
Dan Payne is a Boston-based Democratic media consultant who has worked in John Kerry's Senate campaigns in the past but is not affiliated with his presidential campaign. He does presidential campaign analysis for NPR, and his column appears regularly in the Globe. 
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