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I think Bush is now up but not by 11 points. I'd guess he's really up about 4-5 points, and that could quickly change. It sure changed quickly on John Forbes Kerry. But however much he's up, there's not much doubt that he has all the momentum at the moment. SurveyUSA has been tracking not "who will you vote for" but "who do you expect to win." They do this to capture shifts in political momentum-- or at least perceived political momentum, which is of course just a redundancy. In the big liberal cities, Bush has jumped 15-20 points so...

September 4, 2004 -- Democrats were reaching for the panic button yesterday amid growing fears that John Kerry is blowing the 2004 race — while President Bush basked in the glow of a successful New York convention. "The smell of panic is in the air," said a veteran Democratic strategist as Time magazine reported that Bush has suddenly built an 11-point lead over Kerry. Democratic angst was fueled by Kerry's decision to hold a shrill, post-midnight rally right after Bush's well-received convention speech and blast the wartime commander in chief as "unfit to lead." "It looked reactionary and panicky and...

Only in an election year ruled by fiction could a sissy who used Daddy's connections to escape Vietnam turn an actual war hero into a girlie-man.

The guy has a job, but no way he can sleep at night. This election is over!

The Kerry high command comes to New York City to tell reporters that they're just where they want to be.New YorkIS THE KERRY CAMPAIGN IN DISARRAY? Over the last week, as Republicans gathered in New York City, another, perhaps more interesting, political story developed in Boston, Nantucket, and Washington, D.C. Upset about the way in which they think the Kerry communications team mishandled the controversy over the anti-Kerry veterans group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, many Democrats said it was past time Kerry shook up his communications team. And while "shake up" probably isn't the best way to describe what's...

Many democrats have told Senator Kerry in private to elevate the role of Clinton White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart. Kerry was also advised to reconfigure the department for managing the message, arguably the most important job in politics--dominated by round the clock media coverage. One top Democrat said James Carville, the Clinton's top strategist, is urging the campaign to bring on Paul Begala, who worked for Carville, in a senior position to help with message and strategy. Begala is a Kerry friend who already informally advises the campaign. Several Kerry friends have also privately told the candidate to quit...

[Thread title] "Kerry should not agree to any debates. He should fight on his terms. Debates are a trap. Rove has the media in his pocket. Kerry will win and the media will take it from him. Ask President Gore. No debates. Kerry doesn't need them."

Bush surge prompts Kerry to kick-start campaign By SCOTT SHEPARD Cox News Service Wednesday, September 01, 2004 NEW YORK — Facing falling poll numbers and a surging rival in President Bush, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry is kick-starting his White House bid with new ads and advisers, a harsher criticism of the war in Iraq and a personal message to reporters covering the GOP convention that all is well with his campaign. Kerry has taken the unusual step of dispatching campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill, senior strategist Tad Devine and pollster Mark Mellman to New York to breakfast with political...

Kerry Shifts - By The Prowler Published 9/1/2004 12:08:37 AM THE LOCKHART MONSTER Tuesday afternoon, the Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign announced that former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart was taking a formal role on the sputtering campaign as a senior adviser. The Prowler had reported last week that Lockhart was one of a handful of former Clinton advisers looking to jump aboard the listing campaign as advisers. But Kerry himself late Monday night decided that Lockhart's communications skills and relationships with the national press were too critical to keep off to the side. "Lockhart's elevation is the first sign...

New York (CNSNews.com) - Rumors of a possible shakeup of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's presidential campaign put Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe on the defensive Wednesday when peppered with questions from reporters. "There will be no major campaign shakeups. Let me be crystal clear on that," McAuliffe said. "Will we add people and compliment the campaign on the national level? Of course we will." Political operatives have suggested that Kerry's inability to deflect attacks from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth will lead to campaign changes. It took Kerry two weeks to directly respond to the television ads that...

The Kerry campaign is asleep again Senator Kerry? This is your September wake-up call By Joe Trippi Updated: 12:47 p.m. ET Sept. 1, 2004 NEW YORK - Here at the Republican National Convention, you can tell with each passing day just how formidable, disciplined and unabashedly deceptive the Bush campaign will be as it wages political war with John Kerry. The problem is, as the month of August comes to an end, an old familiar Kerry campaign I’ve seen before has emerged. As Howard Dean’s campaign manager, I saw a front-running Kerry campaign literally fall asleep in the early months...

Sen. John Kerry is angry at the way his campaign has botched the attacks from the Swift boat veterans and has ordered a staff shakeup that will put former Clinton aides in top positions. "The candidate is furious," a longtime senior Kerry adviser told the Daily News. "He knows the campaign was wrong. He wanted to go after the Swift boat attacks, but his top aides said no." Campaign sources stressed that no one is losing a job at this point, but instead "proven winners" like former Clinton aides Joe Lockhart and Joel Johnson are being brought in to try...

Democratic sources say a major shake-up in John Kerry's presidential campaign could be imminent, citing the candidate's inability to respond effectively to criticism from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. According to a CNN report, one party strategist said if changes aren't made, "it could be too late." The shake-up was anticipated to occur by Labor Day. The network reported sources said there will be some changes in the coming days and some "evolving roles" at the campaign's senior level. "We don't have a Carville or a Begala," CNN quotes a senior Kerry official as saying. "We can't mimic what...

Tuesday, August 31 2004 KERRY IS IN CRISIS: Roger L. Simon is right, a shake up by the Kerry camp at this point in the race is tantamount to an admission of crisis. Mickey Kaus is right, too: Joe Lockhart ain't gonna come riding in and save the day. Meanwhile Charlie Cook decided it was time to walk back his rather bold prediction from three weeks ago that this was Kerry's race to lose: "It really is pretty amazing how fast the conventional wisdom can change." You don't say? Maybe it shouldn't have been conventional wisdom in the first place....

NANTUCKET, Mass. -- Sen. John Kerry on Tuesday discarded the long-standing political tradition for presidential candidates to lay low the week of the opposite party's convention by scheduling two rallies in addition to a previously planned appearance before the American Legion convention in Nashville. A campaign spokesman sought to portray the move as a strategy to put Kerry on the offensive and denied speculation that the Massachusetts Democrat was concerned by the current state of the race and was trying to regain momentum.

A fat guy in Miami wearing sackcloth, eating habanera peppers and doing pushups on sheet metal at noon in late August would sweat less than Kerry and his cronies, these days. It seems the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have caused the Democrats to perspire profusely. What’s happened to Mr. Perfect? Could he have, uhhh, been less than accurate concerning his valiant Vietnam days? Did he just exaggerate – or did he lie? -- when he testified and speechified about those atrocious atrocities? Did he really believe that Ramsey Clark had it right on his return from Hanoi, when he...

The pounding Kerry has been taking from the Swift Boat Veterans over his Vietnam record, and his concomitant poll plunge, is literally driving his liberal supporters crazy. The evidence was at hand on last evening's Fox Media Watch (the rebroadcast of which I'm watching this morning at 6:30-7 AM EDT). In all my years of watching the show, I cannot recall the resident liberals - Jane Hall (a woman of a certain age), and the small-but-perfeectly formed Neal Gabler - so absolutely beside themselves. So frenzied was Gabler that you almost imagined the men in white suits would have to...

WHY THEY ARE PANICKING ! 1. The Cambodia Christmas Story is now a proven Lie. 2. The first purple heart was self inflicted . 3. Kerry's own journal confirms there was no hostile fire when he injured himself. 4. Kerry's own journal proves that the rice in the butt he used for another purple heart was also self inflicted. The only other injury he had was a bruise on his arm. 5. His account of the Rassman pickup has been overwhelmed by multiple witnesses. Kerry's boat was the only boat to flee, abandoning the damaged boat and Rassman who fell...

Tucker Carlson just said that CNN has been notified that the Kerry camp will seek to have the goverment pull the Swift Boat veterans for Truth ads.