[My2Cents]

Bush has been pounded by all the Democrat candidates, and by the media for a couple of months now, he's just now getting ads out, and he is hanging in there at around 47%. I think this is solid Bush support. It's reasonable to conclude that Bush can swing a good number of the soft Kerry support to his side. Conclusion: the race isn't as close as the raw head-to-head numbers indicate.

[Coop]

Another 14% [of Bush supporters] think it will be too close to call.

Curiously, 95% of said supporters can be found right here on FR. :-)

[Boundless]

> ... he's [Bush] just now getting ads out ...

The electorate has a short memory. Howard who?

There's not a whole lot of point in clobbering Kerry too
soon. In particular, there's NO point in making it so
obvious that JFK will lose, that the Dems find some way to
replace him with someone more electable.

But it is important to make sure the Dems think that a Dem
can't beat Bush (keep it close). For if they think Bush is
really beatable, then Hillary will replace Kerry at the
convention (or even later, NJ-style).

Bush also needs to not debate Kerry ...
... until after Kerry has debated himself.