There are only 11 days to go until the national referendum on the CREDIBILITY, COMPETENCE and CHARACTER of the _resident, the VICE _resident and the US regimestream news media that fronts for them…There is an Electoral Uprising coming on November 2, 2004…Here are FIVE stories that provide compelling evidence…Please read them and share them with others. Please vote and encourage others to vote. Please remember that the US regimestream news media does not want to inform you about this campaign, it want to DISinform you…The US regimestream news media is a full partner in a Triad of shared special interests (e.g., energy, weapons, media, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, tobacco, etc.) with the Bush Cabal and its wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party…They are going to try to steal this election. They cannot steal it if enough of us vote…”Let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”
Paul Krugman, NY Times: But if you get your political news from cable TV, you probably have a very different sense of where things stand. CNN, which co-sponsored that Gallup poll, rarely informs its viewers that other polls tell a very different story. The same is true of Fox News, which has its own very Bush-friendly poll. As a result, there is a widespread public impression that Mr. Bush holds a commanding lead.
By the way, why does the Gallup poll, which is influential because of its illustrious history, report a large Bush lead when many other polls show a dead heat? It's mostly because of how Gallup determines "likely voters": the poll shows only a three-point Bush lead among registered voters. And as the Democratic poll expert Ruy Teixeira points out (using data obtained by Steve Soto, a liberal blogger), Gallup's sample of supposedly likely voters contains a much smaller proportion of both minority and young voters than the actual proportions of these voters in the 2000 election.
A broad view of the polls, then, suggests that Mr. Bush is in trouble. But he is likely to benefit from a distorted vote count.
Florida is the prime, but not the only, example. Recent Florida polls suggest a tight race, which could be tipped by a failure to count all the votes. And votes for Mr. Kerry will be systematically undercounted.
Marlow W. Cook (Former Republican Senator from Kentucky), Courier-Journal: I have been, and will continue to be, a Republican. But when we as a party send the wrong person to the White House, then it is our responsibility to send him home if our nation suffers as a result of his actions…
First, let's talk about George Bush's moral standards.
In 2000, to defeat Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — a man who was shot down in Vietnam and imprisoned for over five years — they used Carl Rove's "East Texas special." They started the rumor that he was gay, saying he had spent too much time in the Hanoi Hilton. They said he was crazy. They said his wife was on drugs. Then, to top it off, they spread pictures of his adopted daughter, who was born in Bangladesh and thus dark skinned, to the sons and daughters of the Confederacy in rural South Carolina.
To show he was not just picking on Republicans, he went after Sen. Max Cleland from Georgia, a Democrat seeking re-election. Bush henchmen said he wasn't patriotic because Cleland did not agree 100 percent on how to handle homeland security. They published his picture along with Cuba's Castro, questioning Cleland's patriotism and commitment to America's security. Never mind that his Republican challenger was a Vietnam deferment case and Cleland, who had served in Vietnam, came home in a wheel chair having lost three limbs fighting for his country. Anyone who wants to win an election and control of the legislative body that badly has no moral character at all.
We know his father got him in the Texas Air National Guard so he would not have to go to Vietnam. The religious right can have him with those moral standards. We also have Vice President Dick Cheney, who deferred his way out of Vietnam because, as he says, he "had more important things to do."
I have just turned 78. During my lifetime, we have sent 31,377,741 Americans to war, not including whatever will be the final figures for the Iraq fiasco. Of those, 502,722 died and 928,980 came home without legs, arms or what have you.
Those wars were to defend freedom throughout the free world from communism, dictators and tyrants. Now Americans are the aggressors — we start the wars, we blow up all the infrastructure in those countries, and then turn around and spend tax dollars denying our nation an excellent education system, medical and drug programs, and the list goes on. ...
Virginia-Pilot Editorial: National security. Bush greeted the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center with passion and steely purpose. He routed the Taliban in Afghanistan, earning worldwide applause. It was his finest hour.
But when the bull’s-eye shifted from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein, the unraveling began.
But when the bull’s-eye shifted from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein, the unraveling began.
From the start, Bush failed to square with the American people about the true nature of his bold gamble to establish a democratic beachhead in Iraq.
He justified the venture first on the basis of a nonexistent bond between al-Qaida and Saddam, next on equally non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Duped by misplaced faith in shadowy Iraqi resistance figures, Bush wrongly assumed that we would be greeted as liberators, not occupiers. He failed to protect Iraq’s infrastructure, failed to foresee the consequences of disbanding the Iraqi army, failed to have enough troops on the ground to secure a peace.
It’s not as if no one warned him. Beginning with Brent Scowcroft, his father’s national security adviser, a host of respected leaders in the military and intelligence communities raised objections, only to be silenced by Bush’s certitude and the deafening drumbeats of war.
Equally troubling, on the home front, Bush asked nothing in the way of sacrifice — not a halt in tax cuts, not a delay in Medicare prescription drug benefits, not even a little less mileage on the SUV.
The dissembling continues to this day. Earlier this month the Duelfer report dished up the last word on weapons of mass destruction. “We were almost all wrong,” the chief weapons inspector said. Yet Bush persists in arguing that he got it right.
Meanwhile, the body count rises, our moral authority sags and Iraq looks more and more like what we most feared: a breeding ground for terrorists.
Economic security. Bush inherited a recession. That is not his fault. He promised that tax cuts would put America back to work.
Congress obliged. But today we have fewer jobs than when Bush took office. And by cutting revenues and increasing spending we have traded a record surplus for a record deficit.
That’s because when circumstances changed with 9/11, Bush didn’t. He held fast to tax cuts while beefing up spending for the war and homeland security, all defensible. What’s indefensible is that he also invited an explosion in domestic spending, including an unaffordable prescription drug plan that is the largest escalation of Medicare in its history.
Now, instead of a $4.6 trillion, 10-year surplus, the nation faces debt as far as the eye can see.
We are gobbling up more than our children’s inheritances. We are robbing their future paychecks to repay our debts.
Retirement security. That same recklessness has diminished America’s ability to make good on its promises to seniors…
Bush should have applied some of the surplus to that systemic Frankenstein. To keep faith with the future, he should have been building a financial cushion to soften the blow.
He did not.
He elevated the short-term gratification of tax cuts, including breaks for the nation’s wealthiest citizens, over the long-term stability of a critical safety net. His lack of foresight has made a bad situation worse.
Tom Ball, www.politicalstrategy.com: Top 35 Trends that say Kerry will Take the White House in November..This election is not just any old presidential election. To Progressives, it's a matter of life and death.
It will be the difference between global respect for America and multilateral cooperation or increased anti-Americanism and never-ending, preemptive unilateral war...the difference between American values of civil liberty and freedom or curbs on inalienable rights and invasions of privacy...the difference between a future of hope, health, safety, peace and prosperity or one of isolation, violence, debt, and fear.
And this brings me to the reason that we will win in November...
...because we have to.
This 'do or die' perception is what is going to drive progressives and moderates to the polls in record numbers to end the madness. This is why the traditionally apathetic 18-24 year old demographic (Also known as 'Future Casualties of Bush Wars') is going to put down their cell phones long enough to pull the lever for Kerry.
So Who's Winning?
Recently, a couple nationwide polls have shown Bush with a substantial lead, including some nonsensical outlier from Fox News and an equally unrealistic poll from Gallup which showed likely voters favoring Bush by 8 points. What's going on?
Fear not. It is all a grand load of garbage!
Remember, a Gallup poll released on October 26, 2000, less than two weeks before the election, had George Bush leading Al Gore by 13 points! Numerous Gallup polls during the final weeks of the 2000 campaign had Bush with ludicrously large leads.
And this time, Gallup has Bush ahead by 8 among likely voters but by 3 among registered voters.
So how do you go from a 3 point lead among registered voters to an 8 point lead among likely voters? By projecting that 89 percent of registered Bush supporters will vote but only 81 percent of registered Kerry supporters will vote. But as we know, this is totally unrealistic.
Reuters: The majority of U.S. college students favor Democratic challenger John Kerry over President Bush, according to a Harvard University poll released on Thursday that sees a dramatic rise in campus voter turnout.
Just weeks before the Nov. 2 election, researchers at Harvard's Institute of Politics found that 52 percent of all students want the Massachusetts senator elected president, 39 percent support Bush, and 8 percent are undecided.
In 14 hotly contested swing states, the poll shows Kerry leading Bush by 17 points among students.
The data suggest more students are leaning toward Kerry than six months ago, when Harvard last surveyed them. That poll, released in April, found Kerry leading Bush by 48-38 percent with 11 percent undecided. Independent candidate Ralph Nader (news - web sites) received 1 percent support in this poll, down from 5 percent in April.
Support Our Troops, Save the US Constitution,
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Restore Fiscal Responsibility in the White House,
Thwart the Theft of a Second Presidential Election,
Save the Environment, Break the Corporatist
Stranglehold on the US Mainstream News Media, Rescue
the US Supreme Court from Right-Wing Radicals, Cleanse
the White House of the Chicken Hawk Coup and Its
War-Profiteering Cronies, Show Up for Democracy in
2004: Defeat the Triad, Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/opinion/22krugman.html
Voting and Counting
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: October 22, 2004
If the election were held today and the votes were counted fairly, Senator John Kerry would probably win. But the votes won't be counted fairly, and the disenfranchisement of minority voters may determine the outcome.
Recent national poll results range from a three-percentage-point Kerry lead in the A.P.-Ipsos poll released yesterday to an eight-point Bush lead in the Gallup poll. But if you line up the polls released this week from the most to the least favorable to President Bush, the polls in the middle show a tie at about 47 percent.
This is bad news for Mr. Bush because undecided voters usually break against the incumbent - not always, but we're talking about probabilities. Those middle-of-the-road polls also show Mr. Bush with job approval around 47 percent, putting him very much in the danger zone.
Electoral College projections based on state polls also show a dead heat. Projections assuming that undecided voters will break for the challenger in typical proportions give Mr. Kerry more than 300 electoral votes.
But if you get your political news from cable TV, you probably have a very different sense of where things stand. CNN, which co-sponsored that Gallup poll, rarely informs its viewers that other polls tell a very different story. The same is true of Fox News, which has its own very Bush-friendly poll. As a result, there is a widespread public impression that Mr. Bush holds a commanding lead.
By the way, why does the Gallup poll, which is influential because of its illustrious history, report a large Bush lead when many other polls show a dead heat? It's mostly because of how Gallup determines "likely voters": the poll shows only a three-point Bush lead among registered voters. And as the Democratic poll expert Ruy Teixeira points out (using data obtained by Steve Soto, a liberal blogger), Gallup's sample of supposedly likely voters contains a much smaller proportion of both minority and young voters than the actual proportions of these voters in the 2000 election.
A broad view of the polls, then, suggests that Mr. Bush is in trouble. But he is likely to benefit from a distorted vote count.
Florida is the prime, but not the only, example. Recent Florida polls suggest a tight race, which could be tipped by a failure to count all the votes. And votes for Mr. Kerry will be systematically undercounted.
Last week I described Greg Palast's work on the 2000 election, reported recently in Harper's, which conclusively shows that Florida was thrown to Mr. Bush by a combination of factors that disenfranchised black voters. These included a defective felon list, which wrongly struck thousands of people from the voter rolls, and defective voting machines, which disproportionately failed to record votes in poor, black districts.
One might have expected Florida's government to fix these problems during the intervening four years. But most of those wrongly denied voting rights in 2000 still haven't had those rights restored - and the replacement of punch-card machines has created new problems.
After the 2000 debacle, a task force appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush recommended that the state adopt a robust voting technology that would greatly reduce the number of spoiled ballots and provide a paper trail for recounts: paper ballots read by optical scanners that alert voters to problems. This system is in use in some affluent, mainly white Florida counties.
But Governor Bush ignored this recommendation, just as he ignored state officials who urged him to "pull the plug" on a new felon list - which was quickly discredited once a judge forced the state to make it public - just days before he ordered the list put into effect. Instead, much of the state will vote using touch-screen machines that are unreliable and subject to hacking, and leave no paper trail. Mr. Palast estimates that this will disenfranchise 27,000 voters - disproportionately poor and black.
A lot can change in 11 days, and Mr. Bush may yet win convincingly. But we must not repeat the mistake of 2000 by refusing to acknowledge the possibility that a narrow Bush win, especially if it depends on Florida, rests on the systematic disenfranchisement of minority voters. And the media must not treat such a suspect win as a validation of skewed reporting that has consistently overstated Mr. Bush's popular support.
http://www.courier-journal.com/cjextra/editorials/2004/10/20/oped-marlow1020-8060.html
A FORMER REPUBLICAN SENATOR FOR KERRY
'Frightened to death' of Bush
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Marlow W. Cook
Special to The Courier-Journal
I shall cast my vote for John Kerry come Nov 2.
I have been, and will continue to be, a Republican. But when we as a party send the wrong person to the White House, then it is our responsibility to send him home if our nation suffers as a result of his actions. I fall in the category of good conservative thinkers, like George F. Will, for instance, who wrote: "This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and having thought, to have second thoughts."
I say, well done George Will, or, even better, from the mouth of the numero uno of conservatives, William F. Buckley Jr.: "If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war."
First, let's talk about George Bush's moral standards.
In 2000, to defeat Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — a man who was shot down in Vietnam and imprisoned for over five years — they used Carl Rove's "East Texas special." They started the rumor that he was gay, saying he had spent too much time in the Hanoi Hilton. They said he was crazy. They said his wife was on drugs. Then, to top it off, they spread pictures of his adopted daughter, who was born in Bangladesh and thus dark skinned, to the sons and daughters of the Confederacy in rural South Carolina.
To show he was not just picking on Republicans, he went after Sen. Max Cleland from Georgia, a Democrat seeking re-election. Bush henchmen said he wasn't patriotic because Cleland did not agree 100 percent on how to handle homeland security. They published his picture along with Cuba's Castro, questioning Cleland's patriotism and commitment to America's security. Never mind that his Republican challenger was a Vietnam deferment case and Cleland, who had served in Vietnam, came home in a wheel chair having lost three limbs fighting for his country. Anyone who wants to win an election and control of the legislative body that badly has no moral character at all.
We know his father got him in the Texas Air National Guard so he would not have to go to Vietnam. The religious right can have him with those moral standards. We also have Vice President Dick Cheney, who deferred his way out of Vietnam because, as he says, he "had more important things to do."
I have just turned 78. During my lifetime, we have sent 31,377,741 Americans to war, not including whatever will be the final figures for the Iraq fiasco. Of those, 502,722 died and 928,980 came home without legs, arms or what have you.
Those wars were to defend freedom throughout the free world from communism, dictators and tyrants. Now Americans are the aggressors — we start the wars, we blow up all the infrastructure in those countries, and then turn around and spend tax dollars denying our nation an excellent education system, medical and drug programs, and the list goes on. ...
I hope you all have noticed the Bush administration's style in the campaign so far. All negative, trashing Sen. John Kerry, Sen. John Edwards and Democrats in general. Not once have they said what they have done right, what they have done wrong or what they have not done at all.
Lyndon Johnson said America could have guns and butter at the same time. This administration says you can have guns, butter and no taxes at the same time. God help us if we are not smart enough to know that is wrong, and we live by it to our peril. We in this nation have a serious problem. Its almost worse than terrorism: We are broke. Our government is borrowing a billion dollars a day. They are now borrowing from the government pension program, for apparently they have gotten as much out of the Social Security Trust as it can take. Our House and Senate announce weekly grants for every kind of favorite local programs to save legislative seats, and it's all borrowed money.
If you listened to the President confirming the value of our war with Iraq, you heard him say, "If no weapons of mass destruction were found, at least we know we have stopped his future distribution of same to terrorists." If that is his justification, then, if he is re-elected our next war will be against Iran and at the same time North Korea, for indeed they have weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons, which they have readily admitted. Those wars will require a draft of men and women. ...
I am not enamored with John Kerry, but I am frightened to death of George Bush. I fear a secret government. I abhor a government that refuses to supply the Congress with requested information. I am against a government that refuses to tell the country with whom the leaders of our country sat down and determined our energy policy, and to prove how much they want to keep that secret, they took it all the way to the Supreme Court.
Those of you who are fiscal conservatives and abhor our staggering debt, tell your conservative friends, "Vote for Kerry," because without Bush to control the Congress, the first thing lawmakers will demand Kerry do is balance the budget.
The wonderful thing about this country is its gift of citizenship, then it's freedom to register as one sees fit. For me, as a Republican, I feel that when my party gives me a dangerous leader who flouts the truth, takes the country into an undeclared war and then adds a war on terrorism to it without debate by the Congress, we have a duty to rid ourselves of those who are taking our country on a perilous ride in the wrong direction.
If we are indeed the party of Lincoln (I paraphrase his words), a president who deems to have the right to declare war at will without the consent of the Congress is a president who far exceeds his power under our Constitution.
I will take John Kerry for four years to put our country on the right path.
The writer, a Republican formerly of Louisville, was Jefferson County judge from 1962-1968 and U.S. senator from Kentucky from 1968-1975.
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=77017&ran=214061
A course change: The Virginian-Pilot endorses John Kerry
The Virginian-Pilot
© October 21, 2004
Last updated: 5:07 PM
Guestbook discussion: Who's your choice for president? Why?
George W. Bush oiled the troubled waters of his 2000 election by promising to govern as a unifier and a compassionate conservative.
Four years later, the nation is more bitterly split than ever. That is because the president abandoned the middle ground of the Republican Party in favor of its ideological edge.
He discourages internal dissent, equates disagreement with disloyalty and presents the terrorist attacks of 9/11 as an unassailable justification for whatever course the administration takes.
If polls are correct, half of America stands ready to reward his performance with a second term. Their trust rests on faith in the transparency of Bush’s character, that you get what you see, that no one believes more fervently than Bush that freedom is rising abroad and prosperity is around the corner at home.
In anxious and uncertain times, his confidence and clarity carry undeniable appeal.
But Americans must approach this election governed by their heads as well as their hearts.
Resolve is no substitute for results. Americans need to answer honestly: Has Bush strengthened our national security? Our economic security? Our retirement security? Or have his judgments jeopardized all three?
National security. Bush greeted the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center with passion and steely purpose. He routed the Taliban in Afghanistan, earning worldwide applause. It was his finest hour.
But when the bull’s-eye shifted from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein, the unraveling began.
From the start, Bush failed to square with the American people about the true nature of his bold gamble to establish a democratic beachhead in Iraq.
He justified the venture first on the basis of a nonexistent bond between al-Qaida and Saddam, next on equally non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Duped by misplaced faith in shadowy Iraqi resistance figures, Bush wrongly assumed that we would be greeted as liberators, not occupiers. He failed to protect Iraq’s infrastructure, failed to foresee the consequences of disbanding the Iraqi army, failed to have enough troops on the ground to secure a peace.
It’s not as if no one warned him. Beginning with Brent Scowcroft, his father’s national security adviser, a host of respected leaders in the military and intelligence communities raised objections, only to be silenced by Bush’s certitude and the deafening drumbeats of war.
Equally troubling, on the home front, Bush asked nothing in the way of sacrifice — not a halt in tax cuts, not a delay in Medicare prescription drug benefits, not even a little less mileage on the SUV.
The dissembling continues to this day. Earlier this month the Duelfer report dished up the last word on weapons of mass destruction. “We were almost all wrong,” the chief weapons inspector said. Yet Bush persists in arguing that he got it right.
Meanwhile, the body count rises, our moral authority sags and Iraq looks more and more like what we most feared: a breeding ground for terrorists.
Economic security. Bush inherited a recession. That is not his fault. He promised that tax cuts would put America back to work.
Congress obliged. But today we have fewer jobs than when Bush took office. And by cutting revenues and increasing spending we have traded a record surplus for a record deficit.
That’s because when circumstances changed with 9/11, Bush didn’t. He held fast to tax cuts while beefing up spending for the war and homeland security, all defensible. What’s indefensible is that he also invited an explosion in domestic spending, including an unaffordable prescription drug plan that is the largest escalation of Medicare in its history.
Now, instead of a $4.6 trillion, 10-year surplus, the nation faces debt as far as the eye can see.
We are gobbling up more than our children’s inheritances. We are robbing their future paychecks to repay our debts.
Retirement security. That same recklessness has diminished America’s ability to make good on its promises to seniors.
In 1960, the ratio of workers to retirees was better than 5 to 1. By 2030, it will be just over 2 to 1. By 2018 the Social Security system will start paying out more in benefits than it takes in through taxes.
Bush should have applied some of the surplus to that systemic Frankenstein. To keep faith with the future, he should have been building a financial cushion to soften the blow.
He did not.
He elevated the short-term gratification of tax cuts, including breaks for the nation’s wealthiest citizens, over the long-term stability of a critical safety net. His lack of foresight has made a bad situation worse.
To our regret, Massachussetts Sen. John Kerry has also over-promised with the nation’s resources.
Kerry has yet to square his pledge to never raise taxes on the middle class with the reality that revenue to rescue Social Security and Medicare will have to come from somewhere.
But at least Kerry proposes to return to the principle of pay-as-you-go for ordinary federal spending. And he doesn’t advocate destabilizing Social Security by allowing personally owned retirement accounts, as does Bush.
We have misgivings about Kerry’s ability to connect with ordinary people. We were frustrated by his long-winded explanations. And he hasn’t been as forthright as we’d like on America’s slim hopes for reclaiming lost overseas jobs.
But on balance, Kerry is a better choice. He has shown more substance than the flip-flopping caricature drawn by his opponents. He demonstrates an admirable seriousness of purpose, steadiness under fire, and a grasp of the complexities of domestic and foreign policy issues.
Contrary to claims that he tilts with the prevailing winds, Kerry has throughout his lifetime charted an independent course. His zigs and zags reflect his digestion of new information and his arrival at new insights, not slavish devotion to public opinion.
There is no better example of his convictions than his decades-long involvement with Vietnam.
As a young man he elected to go to war at a time when few of his economic and social class took such personal risk. Disillusioned by the experience, he came home to challenge the moral justification for that war at the highest levels of government.
Over time, the prevailing historical view of the Vietnam War has aligned with Kerry’s. But when he spoke out in Washington, his was a minority voice. Then, as decades passed and the nation wanted nothing more than to forget Vietnam, Kerry insisted on a more honorable conclusion.
With Republican Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire, he scoured the countryside for evidence of surviving American captives. With GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, he led in persuading President Clinton to normalize relations with the country.
Common sense and practicality rank high among Kerry’s attributes. He supports importing prescription drugs from Canada, expanding embryonic stem cell research and rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy to finance an innovative answer to high health-insurance premiums.
In poll after poll, Americans say that the nation is on the wrong track. They are right. It is time for fresh leadership at the Pentagon, time for a president who will hold subordinates accountable, time for a chief executive with the wisdom to recognize fatal miscalculations.
If you want the same results, you keep doing the same thing. We do not doubt George Bush’s good intentions. We doubt his judgment. The results speak for themselves.
John Kerry has demonstrated the personal courage and intellectual stamina to put the nation on a sounder course.
© 2004 HamptonRoads.com/PilotOnline.com
http://www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/000580.php
Top 35 Trends that say Kerry will Take the White House in November
By Tom Ball
10/20/04
This election is not just any old presidential election. To Progressives, it's a matter of life and death.
It will be the difference between global respect for America and multilateral cooperation or increased anti-Americanism and never-ending, preemptive unilateral war...the difference between American values of civil liberty and freedom or curbs on inalienable rights and invasions of privacy...the difference between a future of hope, health, safety, peace and prosperity or one of isolation, violence, debt, and fear.
And this brings me to the reason that we will win in November...
...because we have to.
This 'do or die' perception is what is going to drive progressives and moderates to the polls in record numbers to end the madness. This is why the traditionally apathetic 18-24 year old demographic (Also known as 'Future Casualties of Bush Wars') is going to put down their cell phones long enough to pull the lever for Kerry.
So Who's Winning?
Recently, a couple nationwide polls have shown Bush with a substantial lead, including some nonsensical outlier from Fox News and an equally unrealistic poll from Gallup which showed likely voters favoring Bush by 8 points. What's going on?
Fear not. It is all a grand load of garbage!
Remember, a Gallup poll released on October 26, 2000, less than two weeks before the election, had George Bush leading Al Gore by 13 points! Numerous Gallup polls during the final weeks of the 2000 campaign had Bush with ludicrously large leads.
And this time, Gallup has Bush ahead by 8 among likely voters but by 3 among registered voters.
[...]
So how do you go from a 3 point lead among registered voters to an 8 point lead among likely voters? By projecting that 89 percent of registered Bush supporters will vote but only 81 percent of registered Kerry supporters will vote. But as we know, this is totally unrealistic.
Anyway, a Democracy Corps Poll released concurrent to the ridiculous Gallup poll showed Kerry with a 3 point lead.
Remember, in 2000, Democracy Corps' final poll, released five days before the election, was right on the money. In fact, every D.C. poll in the final weeks of the 2000 campaign showed the race to be very, very close.
Also...
* CBS News/NYT (10/19): Kerry 47%, Bush 47% among likely voters (Bush approval at 44%)
* NBC News/WSJ (10/19): Kerry 48%, Bush 48%
* Zogby, the most accurate pollster of the last two presidential elections has the race exactly tied at 45% with 7% still undecided. (Remember. Undecideds tend to break for the challenger. More on that below.)
The national polls however, are just one part of an extensive mosaic of influences on this election. And you might be heartened to know that virtually all the rest favor John Kerry.
Continue reading to discover the...
Top 35 Trends that say Kerry will Take the White House in November
1) Bush must lead by 4%: Professor Alan of the Emerging Democratic Majority shows that Bush must go into November 2 with an average of at least a 4% lead in such polls if he is to have any sort of hope for four more years.
2) The 'Cell Phone Polling' Phenomenon: Traditional polling relies almost exclusively on landline telephone. Unfortunately, according to Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report, as much as 18% of the electorate don't have land lines and instead rely exclusively on cell phones. The Hill gives us a little something about this demographic:
In-Stat.MDR, a wireless market-research firm based in Scottsdale, Ariz., conducted a survey of wireless users in February of this year. Of the 970 people questioned, 14.4 percent were cell-phone-only users, the majority of whom were single Americans between the ages of 18 and 24, living in mostly urban areas.
Anyone care to venture a guess as to how this demographic overwhelmingly votes?
Yup. According to Newsweek (10/16/04), Young voters (18-29) favor Kerry/Edwards by 9 points.
3) Zogby is the Most Accurate Pollster: Zogby, which touts the most accurate polls for the last two presidential elections, calls for a very strong Kerry victory. He has referred to the race as "Kerry's to lose."
In 2000, Zogby was one of several pollsters that was only two cumulative percentage points off from the actual, but it was the only one in that group to actually choose Gore as the winner (which we all know he was).
In 1996, Zogby hit the nail right on the head. Sure, everyone predicted a Clinton victory, but Zogby predicted the exact percentage totals for Clinton, Dole...and even Perot at 8%.
4) Kerry Has Large Lead in Swing States: Kerry is doing extremely well where it matters, leading Bush by 10% in the swing states. According to the Washington post.
5) PA Goes to Kerry:Pennsylvania is NOT in play! (and neither is New Jersey. Don't let the GOP Poll 'Strategic Vision' fool you.) That leaves Ohio and Florida as the next target.
6) Seniors Favor Kerry: Also, Among Registered Voters in a 3-way matchup, seniors favor Kerry over Bush by a large margin. According to Newsweek, Seniors (65+) favor Kerry/Edwards by 15 points, 54-39. The 65+ Category is particularly important in Florida where this age group make up a disproportionately large percentage of the voting population.
7) Kerry Appeals to Independents in the Debates: Polls showed that Kerry gained favor from swing voters as a result of his performance. Many more people had increased positive perceptions of Kerry as a result of the debates than the number of people who an increased positive perception for Bush. Conversely (I think), The number of those whose perception of Kerry grew more negative was less than the number of those whose perception of Bush grew more negative as a result.
8) Kerry Appeals to independents... Period.: In polling, self-proclaimed independents favor Kerry/Edwards by 11 points, 51-40.
9) New Standard for GOTV: GOTV efforts were allocated $25 million by the DNC in the 2000 election cycle. This year they will commit about the same. The difference, however, comes with a new 527 called America Coming Together, a group that will be devoting at least $125 million toward the GOTV effort. They will also be adding an expertise, coordination and organization unseen in prior years.
10) Democrats Won the Registration Wars: Voter Registrations have heavily favored the Democratic party this cycle. Dems have made significant gains on Republicans in numbers of party affiliated registrations in practically every swing state.
Debate Effect
11) Kerry Erased Doubts About Himself: The Debates erased many of the doubts held by undecideds as Kerry showed a man that was poised, consistent, tough, intelligent, able to think on his feet and keep his cool. He was a man with a plan for everything. Dare I say - He was 'presidential'...and he didn't need a transmitter to pull it off. Kerry was also successful in countering the nonsense charges of 'flip-flopping'.
12) Bush Increased Doubts About Himself: The debates raised doubts about Bush. He was inept, incoherent, repetitive, negative, inconsistent and lacking in identity. (Which debate had the 'real' Bush?). He was unable to defend his record and unable to conjure any meaningful new attacks on Kerry. Bush did succeed in one facet of the debates. He succeeded in spurring two rumors that might explain his dubious debate performances. One, that he was "hooked up" to his handlers via a transmitter hidden under his suit coat. And two. That he had suffered a mild stroke or some sort of onsetting dementia.
Now (Election 2004) vs. Then (Election 2000)
13) Ralph Nader: Nader is less of an issue this year, although he could still quite probably throw some swing states to the evil one. In any event, Nader is on the ballot in fewer states (but still on in Florida) than in 2000, and hopefully most Naderites will realize by Nov 2 that four more years of bush will finish the job of destroying everything that they claim to hold dear.
14) Howard Dean: The Dean Revolution has given rise to a new generation of Democratic voters and activists. It has given hope to a previously undercounted, underappreciated and underestimated demographic. It has rewritten the book on how elections are played. Long live Howard Dean. Yaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrhhh!!!
15) Michael Moore: The 'Moore Effect' and Fahrenheit 911. Love it or leave it, polls show that the film had significant influence on the impressions that 'uncommitted' voters had of Bush. In addition, most anecdotal evidence suggests that those self-proclaimed independents who saw it were 'disgusted and disturbed' with Bush - not exactly words of likely Bush voters.
16) George Soros: The Republicans have always had their sugar daddies to fund all their wacky pet projects -- Scaife, Coors, the Waltons, and others. Now we have one that, if not funding all our wacky pet projects, is at least putting his considerable resources toward the same goals. Thank you George Soros.
17) The 527's: The Joint Victory Campaign 2004, a consortium of organizations including Moveon.org, America Coming Together, the Media Fund, America Votes, and the Thunder Road Group along with others have turned this election cycle into one where Democrats have been able to manage a virtual and unprecedented financial parity with the GOP. At the same time, these groups have supplied Democrats with an enormous, talented, organized ground army as well as attack dogs that are able to proxy for the Dems when they couldn't involve themselves directly.
18) Newspaper endorsements: ...not they mean much by themselves, but as a group, an interesting phenomenon is occurring that might cause people to take notice. It seems that those newspapers across the nation that endorsed Gore are now endorsing Kerry - and those papers that endorsed Bush are now endorsing.....uh...well, some are endorsing Bush and some are now endorsing Kerry. Seems quite one-sided. Of course, I'm not suggesting that the editorial pages of America's newspapers represent Joe and Jane voter. But, the fact that prior Bush supporters, whomever they should be, are moving into the Kerry camp, while none of the Gore supporters are turning to Bush seems at least a tad bit telling.
19) The New Progressive Media: Beginnings of a true progressive media: The addition, since the 2000 election, of such institutions as Air America, the Center for American Progress, the Rockridge Institute, and Media Matters, along with the rise of the "progressive web" (Blogs, news and opinion sites, and headline aggregators) have given a new voice and a new outlet with which to air it. This emerges from the cloud of trash emanating from right-wing hate radio, Fox News, the Washington Times, the NY Post, etc. Of course this is just the beginning.
20) Better Informed Public: Voter fraud and intimidation has come under greater scrutiny. Hopefully this will cause the GOP to pause when they enact their schemes.
21) Better Educated Florida Electorate: Florida Voters are more aware and informed. Hopefully, that means that there will be fewer overvotes and undervotes. Hopefully people will know what to do if they feel they are a victim of voter intimidation. Hopefully Jewish seniors won't vote for Pat Buchanan. Hopefully, counties won't dabble in 'Butterfly' ballots.
22) Log Cabin Republicans: Log Cabin Republicans have abandoned Bush. This administration's flagrant and disgraceful bigotry targeted at gays has led the primary GOP organization for gays to forego any endorsement.. This means that the group, instead of sending out literature urging their members to vote for Bush, will be sending out information explaining that the administration's push to amend the constitution to define them as a second class citizenry has forced them to suggest that members stay home on election day. In 2000, one million self-described gays and lesbians voted for Bush (Most were not members of the Log Cabin Republicans organization). Nevertheless, the impact of this refusal to endorse Bush was felt across the demographic.
True, this doesn't mean that Bush will automatically lose one million votes, but consider this. Suppose 95% of those who voted for Bush in 2000 are likely to show up in 2004 as well. Now suppose only 30% of those are fed up enough not to vote (A reasonable, if not conservative estimate). That means 95% x 30% x 1,000,000 = 285,000 fewer votes will make it into Bush's electoral coffers than would otherwise have made it. To counter this effect, one might consider the increased number of votes from Bush's bigoted constituency, those who support the gay marriage amendment and who would not otherwise vote but for this issue.
23) Arab Americans: Arab Americans are abandoning Bush. This demographic went solidly for Bush in 2000. He will not receive their votes this year.
"In just the four battleground states we're polling, over 200,000 Arab American voters have switched from the Republican to the Democratic column," said Jim Zogby, senior analyst for Zogby International, which specializes in Muslim and Arab polling.
A Zogby poll of the four states in September projected a turnout of 510,000 Arab American voters. That includes 120,000 in Florida and 85,000 in Ohio - both of which went to Bush in 2000, along with their combined 46 electoral votes. The poll showed Kerry leading Bush in these states, 47 percent to 31.5 percent, with 9 percent backing independent candidate Ralph Nader.
A second Zogby poll of 1,700 Muslim voters nationwide conducted for Georgetown University showed Kerry leading Bush, 68 percent to 7 percent, with 11 percent backing Nader.
Zogby and other analysts estimate the Muslim electorate at around 2 million voters.
24) Cuban Americans: Bush owes much to the Cuban-American voters, particularly in Florida. Cubans are the only Latin American demographic which clearly favor Republicans and they are a voting force in Florida -- a necessary constituency if Bush hopes to pull Florida out of the bag once again. Recently, the Cuban American Commission for Family Rights announced their disfavor with the administration's policies in the following statement:
President Bush's new Cuban sanctions policy creates more hardship for Cuban Americans, his voting constituency, than to the Cuban government and opens itself up to serious discriminatory legal actions, aside from loss of votes.
This is the first time in the history of U.S. reunification policies that such policy goes against family reunification, discouraging visits and redefining the definition of who is family.
Coattail Indicators
25) Senate Races: NON-incumbent Democrats are running uncharacteristically strong in traditionally conservative strongholds. Dems are favored in such right-wing bastions as Alaska, Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Oklahoma. And now we can add Kentucky to that list. The same is NOT true for NON-incumbent Republicans in traditional democratic strongholds.
26) Conservative Strongholds: Some conservative strongholds are in play, offering Kerry some nontraditional electoral opportunities including Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Colorado.
27) Vote Banking: Vote banking, voting prior to November 2nd (Not all states allow this), helped Gore take Iowa in 2000 and continues to help Kerry. This also helps alleviate long lines that typically occur in heavily populated Urban areas (i.e. Democratic Strongholds) on November 2nd and theoretically ensures that your vote gets counted. 'Irregularities' can be addressed prior to election day and voter intimidation is a more difficult prospect for the GOP during this period. Reports indicate that Vote Banking is in full stride, far outpacing any prior year.
Along these lines, early voters, favor Kerry/Edwards by 9, 52-43 (Meaning those voters who voted prior to the official election day).
Common Wisdom
28) The 50% Rule: If an incumbent is experiencing approval ratings below 50%, he or she usually loses. The latest CBS News/NY Times poll gave Bush only a 44% approval rating. The average of the last 5 polls shows Bush's job approval even further below 50%:
* Approve: 46%
* Disapprove: 48.1%
29) Right Track, Wrong Track: Polls say that more people think the country is on the wrong track than those who say the right track. This can hardly work in Bush's favor. People believe the nation under Bush is headed in the wrong direction. The average of the last 11 polls citing whether the nation is heading in the Right/Wrong direction heavily disfavors Bush:
* Right direction: 42%
* Wrong Direction: 52%
30) Incumbent Rule: 'Undecideds' break at least 60-40% for the challenger. Also, an incumbent president rarely gets even more than 1% of the popular vote than the final polls show. If an incumbent is polling, 47%, 48% just before the election, that is probably what he will get. In contrast, the challenger always does much better than the final polls indicate!
31) Reelect: Bush's Reelect numbers are terrible. The average of the last 6 independent polls shows Bush's reelect numbers at:
* Yes: 46.7%
* No: 49.2%
Fire in the Belly
32) Rocketing Gas and Energy Prices: The price of gas serves as a constant reminder of Bush's failures in both foreign and domestic policy. Common wisdom says that people vote their pocket. Indeed, nobody cares what the price is for a barrel of oil ...unless it filters into higher gas and energy prices. This is a material impact on their pockets of average Americans and even if some won't admit it, they blame the problem, at least in part, on the government (currently headed by George W. Bush). People also understand that the invasion of Iraq has 'something' to do with these prices. Sure, Bush supporters are unlikely to vote for Kerry because of this, but it might subconsciously give reason for some to find themselves just a touch too busy to make it to the polls on election day.
33) The Bush Draft: The administration and its minions are trying desperately to quash the spreading speculation of a 'Bush Draft'. Despite their best efforts, the word continues to spread -- and with ill effects for Bush. Bush is helping us to get out the 'cell-phone-only' demographic - people aged 18-24.
34) Expatriates: Non-military expatriates are motivated to remove Bush (as are non-career military personnel). These are the people who have had to deal directly with the lashback from the rampant, Bush-inspired anti-Americanism that has flourished during the last four years.
35) The left is fired up!: This is the key ingredient to ensure maximum turnout by the left on election day. This is one thing we can all thank Bush for. The left is so outraged and disgusted with the policies, lies and crimes of this administration, that we wouldn't stay home on election day if it was raining darts (which is something I'm sure the GOP is working on.)
The bottom line is that Kerry will win on November 2nd.
Remember… life or death -- if not for us, then for our children.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041021/pl_nm/campaign_youth_dc_3
Most College Students Favor Kerry -Harvard Poll
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
BOSTON (Reuters) - The majority of U.S. college students favor Democratic challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) over President Bush (news - web sites), according to a Harvard University poll released on Thursday that sees a dramatic rise in campus voter turnout.
Just weeks before the Nov. 2 election, researchers at Harvard's Institute of Politics found that 52 percent of all students want the Massachusetts senator elected president, 39 percent support Bush, and 8 percent are undecided.
In 14 hotly contested swing states, the poll shows Kerry leading Bush by 17 points among students.
The data suggest more students are leaning toward Kerry than six months ago, when Harvard last surveyed them. That poll, released in April, found Kerry leading Bush by 48-38 percent with 11 percent undecided.
Independent candidate Ralph Nader (news - web sites) received 1 percent support in this poll, down from 5 percent in April.
"Kerry had a lead in April, but it was a soft lead, and now students seem to know him better and are aligned with him on issues like the economy, the war in Iraq (news - web sites) and terrorism," said David King, the institute's director of research.
Forty-five percent of the students polled feel the country is headed in the wrong direction. Forty-one percent feel it is headed in the right direction.
Students feel Kerry, criticized in the past as aloof and failing to take a firm stand on issues, leads Bush in understanding what matters most to them. Kerry also edges Bush 49 percent to 42 percent on which candidate is better qualified to be president, the poll said.
HEAVY CAMPUS TURNOUT SEEN
The poll also found 84 percent of college students plan to cast a ballot, as both candidates woo young voters.
"The tide has changed from apathy to engagement and excitement," King said. "Students are no longer just watching politics on the West Wing," he said referring to the popular U.S. television show.
Even as researchers predicted a surge in turnout among college students, they cautioned that many who say they will vote will not show up on Election Day. Still, they expect over half of all college voters to go to the ballot box, up from 42 percent who voted four years ago.
"There are over nine million college students in America, and their vote will matter this year -- especially in swing states," Institute Director Philip Sharp said in a statement. "Neither campaign can afford to ignore them."
While Kerry led Bush in overall support, Bush was viewed as the stronger leader by 49-36 percent. Bush also outpaced Kerry by 57-27 percent on which candidate takes a clear stand on the issues.
"The poll shows Bush is a strong leader but also shows they do not want to be led where he's going," King said.
The poll was based on interviews with 1,202 people chosen at random from a database of nearly 5.1 million students across the country. Conducted between Oct. 7-13, it has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percent.
A Reuters/Zogby three-day tracking poll released on Thursday showed Bush edging Kerry 46-45 percent, a statistical dead heat.