Time Magazine last week: 11% lead. USA Today headline today: 7% That's a 36% drop in seven days. --John Bear, who has bookmarked www.immigration.ca
And yet the latest electoral count has Bush up by five, from 270 a few days ago to 275 today. The magic number, remember, is 270. BTW, Tom Head, sorry to hear about Fordice's death.
Re: Re: Bush lead declines 36% in one week. So am I, Jimmy; I don't do a very good job of keeping up with the local news, so this was the first I'd heard about it. I appreciate your bringing it to my attention. Fordice was pretty far to my right when he was governor, but he always struck me as very laid back and unpretentious, with a good sense of humor--definitely someone who would fit well into the yes column on Bruce's six-pack thread. And like Bob Dole, he grew on me very quickly after he left office and was allowed to be himself. I'd looked forward to his insights on the 2004 election, and am very sorry to see him go. The L.A. Times paints less red into its electoral map (with Kerry ahead 161 to 147), largely because it leaves the tossup states undecided. But I think it's clear that (a) Bush is running ahead in an electoral majority of the swing states and (b) Bush's increase in state-by-state electoral college polls (from an 117-point deficit to a 5-point lead) coincided with his post-convention bounce. A better test will be where things are a month from now, when both conventions are behind us. I will be very surprised if either candidate gets more than 300 electoral votes. The USA Today poll, incidentally, shows Bush with a mere one point lead (49-48) over Kerry among registered voters--and that's with Nader drawing three points. Cheers,
