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But dales, that fundamentally contradicts your Hanson quote, which you also seem to approve of

No, it does not. The former deals with the public in totality; the latter deals with the conservative/Republican base. Frankly, I had expected to see some evidence of the latter weakening, attributable to spending concerns. That evidence is not there, though. I buy into VDH's analysis. Conservative Republicans understand that despite their concerns, the foreign policy and defense positions of Kerry would be a disaster. They are staying put.

As for who it is that does need the case to be made, they are definitely 'in play' voters. I would tend to think that since they moved so noticeably during the Democrat nominating process, when a good portion of the middle is not really paying attention to a significant degree, tells me that these are people not tending to lean GOP, but rather to lean Democrat.

I'd rather you be right that they were the weak GOP or lean GOP types. It would be easier to recapture them.

did you note the partisan splits in the ARG polls? Kerry's losing only 6% of Dems to Bush, who's losing only 8% of Repubs to Kerry. Amazing.

Yes, I did. On one level, it makes sense due to the fact that the poll was taken the day after Kerry sewed up the nomination and Edwards dropped out. You would expect the Democrats polled to be unified at such a time. On another, it made me skeptical of the poll as no other Florida poll shows Bush getting only slightly more than 90% of Republicans-- neither of the other two polls released last week in Florida (including the other taken on the exact same days) showed this weakness.

Still, I revised my call and moved Florida to slight advantage for Kerry.

Don't get greedy!! 8% erosion is mighty fine in most circumstances. You almost never see that number below 5% in any event if only because of the RINOs and DINOs (led by Lincoln Chaffe and Zell Miller respectively) in each party.

If I take your reading of Hanson, then he's not wrong, just silly. His thesis works out to "People who want to support will support Bush." Your idea is more interesting.

The reason why I tend to think the group you identify is GOP "leaners" rather than Dem "leaners" is because Dem leaners are much less likely to have ever been in the "strongly support" camp to begin with.

I think Bush will NOT re-make his case for Iraq, I think he will lose voters for that, although I don't think that means Bush will neccessarily lose the election. He won't stop the bleeding, it'll just coagulate. It's a CHARACTER thing.

:^{)