This seems to be the consensus of many people I talk to here in what is arguably a battleground region of a battleground state. Kerry himself is kind of irrelevant at this point. The Rats might as well be running a mannequin as their candidate (which might be an improvement in some ways, at least as far as not flipping off veterans in front of school children is concerned). The election seems to be coming down to a question of whether or not people want Bush out of there. In my state, at least, it's still an open question at this point.
That is the most worrisome aspect of this -- even here is Alabama where Bush will win in double digits, I have a lot of friends who are saying they wish they had a viable alternative to vote for. Bush is on very thin ice almost completely across the board (except for his core backers), he badly needs something positive to happen for him -- all he needs is to find the one good reason to give people to vote for him again.