Nailbiter

Chris Bowers at MYDD comments on a Zogby analyses of the state of the race:

On the one hand, of course Bush is closing the gap. He made up ground before the convention, and he made up ground–even moving ahead nationally–during the convention. However, Kerry remains in a strong position. He leads in four of the six “red” states that are his best chances for pickups, FL, MO, NV and NH, (OH and WV are the other two) even though Bush just had his convention after and the last three weeks of free media were decidedly negative for the challenger. It would be too much to assume that this is Bush peak, since the attacks will keep coming and history does not tell us what always happens in the future. If at what is very possibly Kerry’s low point he still leads in the Electoral College, then it is not hard to be optimistic about this election.

Ruy Texeira analyzes the internals of the Gallup Poll

Prior to the Republican convention, Kerry had a one point lead among RVs (47-46) in the battleground states. After the Republican convention, now that battleground voters have had a chance to take a closer look at what Bush and his party really stand for, Kerry leads by 5 in these same states (50-45)! Note that Kerry gained three points among battleground voters, while Bush actually got a negative one point bounce.

Indeed, if equal polarization of partisans continues and Kerry carries a 3 point lead on independents into the election, he’ll win fairly easily, since the Democratic proportion of voters in presidential elections is always higher, not lower, than the Republican proportion. In 2000, after all, Bush carried independents by 2 points and received stronger support from his partisans than Gore did from his–but still lost the popular vote by half a point.

We can certainly be encouraged that the race remains close. But, keep one thing in mind. If the race remains this close, or if Kerry takes the lead, the other side is going to loose another barrage of negative campaigning equally vicious to that which we saw in August. The Bush machine will do anything to prevent President Asterisk’s loss after his very dubious win in 2000 and his fathers ignominious defeat in 1992. Two one term presidents in a row and this dynasty is done. Father and son will be remembered as historic losers of epic proportion. They know this. They will not go down easily.

Let’s hope the new National Guard info puts them off message. They get all confused when they have to play defense. They aren’t used to it.