REALLY "FOR THE CHILDREN" - AND ALL OF US
My wife's college roommate lost a son to Leukemia. Please consider a donation.

I'd also encourge donations for these other charities for conditions close to the Federal Review family.

Epilepsy Foundation.

American Cancer Society.

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP
Well, I guess you could, but we didn't. This was noted in The Corner - from the GQ interview.

"To me Vietnam is an old place, an old memory. It is old history, it’s gone, it’s past. The less I have to talk about it, frankly, the happier I am." -- John F. Kerry.

Really. And don't forget his recent pronouncement about how we may have to move troops out of Germany and South Korea, only to proclaim it a ridiculous idea when it because Bush Administration policy.

As noted in The Corner: [I]t's intellectual ADHD.

WAKE COUNTY NC HARASSING CITIZENS
Good citizens from the "Public Interest Research Group" are being harassed by the Wake County Board of Elections because they turned in fraudulent voter registrations, with fake names, fake addresses, duplicates with fake signatures. But, according to the News & Observer, it's no big deal. Just a warm, summer day. When someone misspells their last name as James and then signs Jones, it's just a typo to the N&O.

And I guarantee that these are Democratic registrations. Not that the N&O tells you these things. But, as usual, Dems don't care about enforcement action against voter fraud.

KERRY LET'S PRESS DO "DIRTY WORK" IN ATTACKING VETERANS
Not willing to release his own military records, John Kerry's campaign (OK, let's called it "The Wasthington Post" who, so far hasn't been able to get Kerry's records) has leveraged the FOIA to get Larry Thurlow's records released. Thurlow is one of the Swift Boat Veteran's for Truth who oppose John Kerry's candidacy - a candidacy built almost entirely on John Kerry's 2 tours in Vietnam, including 4 months of combat. While Kerry mentions his service in every speech and has even conditioned reporters to describe him in unrelated articles as a "decorated Vietnam veteran", he thinks people should not dare think critically about his boasts.

Kerry even runs an ad with John Edwards saying "If you have any question about what John Kerry's made of, just spend 3 minutes with the men who served with him." Thurlow served with John Kerry, but Edwards means you should spend three minutes with only a very select few who served with John Kerry. And, by the way, you can talk to Max Cleland, who didn't. Don't dare spend three minutes with those who served in his Swift boat flotilla unless Kerry pulled him out of the water and his name has been provided by the Kerry campaign. And ignore the entire chain of command above him.

So, the Thurlow attack is based on a recent affidavit he signed saying that he and Kerry weren't under enemy fire during the Rassmann incident, which apparently contradicts the Bronze Star citiation received by Thurlow. But, Thurlow says his bronze star, too, is fraudulent if based on enemy fire. Somehow, this makes Thurlow a liar, and that's an issue to the Kerry campaign.

But it doesn't. In fact, it is wholly consistent with the story that Thurlow is telling today, that the incident did not happen the way Kerry says and that the medal citation is wrong. Now, we can argue Thurlow versus Navy, Thurlow versus Kerry, Kerry vesus Navy, etc., but that's what the whole SwiftVet complaint is about -- that the Navy awarded medals based on inaccurate accounts by Kerry that he is repeating today. But as usual, the press doesn't understand and refuses to look into the cornerstone of Kerry's campaign for President. They aren't questioning Kerry about it or demanded a release of his records as they did with President Bush. And today, The New York Times simply whines that this is the kind of thing that too much free speech leads to.

MAIL BAG
We've gotten some interesting mail here recently at Federal Review. Not everyone chimes in on the comments, and that's fine. I like email, except the kind that tells me I can get Adobe Photoshop for $50 or Microsoft Office Professional for $25. Still don't know why I'm on the Viagra lists. Mrs. Right Wingnut doesn't know either.

Anyway, some of the mail is thoughtful and serious, and others is just plain silly. Here are some recent receipts. I'm withholding full names just in case they don't want to be known for the intelligent and reasoned correspondents that they are.

From: xxxxxxx@xxxrs.com [mailto:xxxxxxx@xxxrs.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 1:02 PM
To: winston[AT]federalreview.com
Subject: Election analysis

First off, I do agree the race is not over. We do not know what kind of bump
Bush will get, although I anticipate one similar to the one Kerry got.
Major events are more likely to favor Bush as well. However there are some
problems with the comparisons you are trying to draw.

Economic indicators are of less importance now. The parties are no longer
primarily split on economic line. That is why the models missed in 2000.
Cultural issues divide them more. "Who would you rather have teach your
children?" and "How often do you go to church?" are more correlated to vote
than income. The voting patters now look like 1900, with the parties
reversed.

Previous large bumps like in 1988, depended on a lot of people that were
undecided and not paying attention. The number of solid voters is much
higher now. Only the hard-core uninvolved have not made up their minds.

As far as people voting for/against the challenger/incumbent. If only 20%
of the population is hard-core against the incumbent, that statistic would
be a problem for the challenger, but given that hard-core Bush opposition
is at 40%, its not a concern. Finally you put Bush's approval at 51%, which
seems to be only a slight statistical bump in one poll. If you look at RPC,
and all polls in August for far, Bush is around 47.5%. Gallup may be the
methodology you care about, and that's fine, but Gallup can't have a true
up-bump without the others picking of the same bump, and they have not.

Dave

I like it when someone agrees with me. At least partly. I have to look into the 1900 comparison. All I know is it was McKinley versus Bryan. And check out that 1900 election map. Looks familiar, doesn't it. And I used Gallup because of Gallup's history. When you say "No challenger has done x x x when his polling was x at this point," then you are probably talking about Gallup numbers. Sure, I picked the good one for my guy. I think Fox recently had a pretty low number for Bush's approval.

I'm not sure if we can say yet that this race is as fundamentally different from previous years as conventional wisdom says. We'll know better on November 3. I wonder, for instance, the effect of caller ID on pollsters. Could that be the reason Zogby missed so many races in 2002, when he predicted a lot of losing Democrats to win? Maybe. Any studies on this? Or are younger folks being missed by pollsters because a lot have dumped land lines for cell phones? Figure it out. Get back to me.

From: Michael XXXXX[mailto:XXXXXXXXXXXXXX@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 11:07 AM
To: winston[AT]federalreview.com
Subject: your review

Dear Winston

I guess you just really like voting for a killer. Bush has killed nearly 950 Americans with his lies about WMD. Anyone who knows what is going on knows that Bush wanted to invade Iraq from the day he took the oath & used the pain & tragedy of 9/11 to railroad this country into the Iraqi war. See The Project for the New American Century- an imperialistic blueprint for deposing Saddam written by the fascist imperialists he riddled State & Defense with in his Administration.

As for your hopeful; blather in today's FR re comparisons to the past just read the internals in the latest Zogby poll & see if you have the stomach for the crap you put on your front page.

Michael

I think I should forward Michael some of that junk mail I've been getting. We could go over the "Bush lied about WMDs" thing again, I guess, but why? OK, here's the quick version. Everyone thought they had WMDs, from Clinton and his Administration, to Senators like Kerry, Clinton, Levin, etc. Kofi agreed. So did Germany, France, Russia, Jordan, Egypt etc., so saying that Bush "lied" is an assumption that Bush knew something that no one else in the world. Even the 9/11 Commission said Bush was right on the Iraq/African connection and Wilson was, shall we say, challenged. So, I'll file Mike's email under "Thinks Bush is Evil Genius".

As for PNAC, it says here I'm not supposed to talk about it. Orders are orders.

From: Dennis XXXXXXXX [mailto:XXXXXXXXXXXXX@hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2004 1:15 AM
To: winston[AT]federalreview.com
Subject: Colors

Let me be the 1 millionth to complain about your color code. What the hell were you thinking? The whole universe has got Bush red - Gore blue, but not you.

Besides being extremely annoying, it calls in to question you methodology. If you can't get the colors right, why other to read the rest?

Not the 1 millionth. My hits are more than I ever expected, but not that big. You'll know I've hit the big time when you see ads warning about 4 hour erections on my site. As for my colors, I'm really not doing a Bush/Gore projection, so I don't know what Dennis is talking about. I was thinking of going with a green / yellow color scheme, but I'll ditch that idea now that I know it would call my numbers into question.

KERRY LEADS, BUT ITS FAR FROM OVER
Bush 47.6% – 217 EV | Kerry 50.7% – 321 EV
EV without Toss Up states (under 2% margin): Bush 211| Kerry 291| Toss 36

Last week I wondered if it was time for the Bush campaign and its supporters to move on to other things. Electing Senators and Congressman. Anticipating the new season of Enterprise. Writing letters to NBC to replace the Bartlet Administration with Tom Selleck as a Republican president.

After all, Bush has now trailed in the Composite Poll every week since July 13 and has only led three times since May 18. And last week, Kerry had his biggest lead, at over 3.5 points. But some guy named Don reminds us on our comment pages: Dukakis was up 17 at this time in the election cycle. History tells us that Bushes gain 25 over Massachusetts paleoliberals from this time to election day. It's always nice to remember history and that Kerry was Dukakis' lieutenant governor.

So, what about history? Gerry Daly talks about Bush's lead over Gore in 2000 at this point between conventions, noting that in his analysis of state polling, Bush led in states worth 346 electoral votes. In case you forgot, it was a bit closer than that as Bush hauled in only 271. In this week's Federal Review analysis, Kerry is not doing as well as the challenger in 2000, with only 321 electoral votes.

So, I thought I'd take a look at the Composite Poll numbers from 2000 (yes, this is the Composite's second election).

At this time in 2000, after Mr. Bush's convention, but before Gore's, Bush led in the Composite Poll by 7.5 points. NBC showed Bush up 3. Gallup had him up 16. Fox, up 3. ABC News, up 8.

But things turned around, Gore got a bump out of his convention, and, Bush rallied, election eve DUI story, and whammo, a close election. So, there's plenty of time left.

Other metrics. No president with an approval rating over 50% at this time in the race has ever lost – Bush is at 51%. No challenger whose supporters were voting more against him than for him has ever won. The President gets reelected if second quarter GDP growth exceeds 2.6%. Second quarter this year is 3.0% (estimate, actually to be released August 27). Ray Fair's model says Bush is a lock, unless his model is more wrong than it's ever been since 1916.

Anyway, there's still the RNC and three debates, so the race is far from over.

Now, the numbers.

This Week's Polls
CNN/USA Today/Gallup (Bush 48 | Kerry 46)
Zogby (Bush 43 | Kerry 47)
Pew (Bush 45 | Kerry 47)
Rasmussen Week Average (Bush 46.0 | Kerry 48.1)
Iowa Electronic Vote Share Market (Bush 50.1 | Kerry 49.6)

Last Week's Polls
FoxNews / Opinion Dynamics (Bush 43 | Kerry 47)
AP / Ipsos (Bush 45 | Kerry 48)
Investor’s Business Daily (Bush 42 | Kerry 45)
Time (Bush 44 | Kerry 48)
Rasmussen Week Average (Bush 46.4 | Kerry 47.2)
Iowa Electronic Vote Share Market (Bush 50.4 | Kerry 48.8)



A quick look at how the polls perform week to week, analyzing each pollster variance from the weekly mean. A positive number means the pollster reports a more Bush favorable result, a negative number indicates a more Kerry favorable result. Thus, on average, CBS reports a margin between the candidates that is 1.6 points more in favor of John Kerry than the average of all polls released on the weeks of the CBS release. It is interesting to note where Zogby and Gallup appear, indicating that one is only a bit more of an outlier than the other.

CBS (-1.6)
Zogby (-1.1)
Newsweek (-1.1)
ABC Washington Post (-0.3)
Rasmussen (-0.2)
CNN/USAToday/Gallup (+0.5)
FoxNews (+0.5)
IBD/CSM/TIPP (+0.9)

Bush State Gains
None

Kerry State Gains
Ohio

Toss Up States (Slight Lead of <2%)
Arkansas (Bush)
Nevada (Kerry)
Ohio (Kerry)
West Virginia (Kerry)

And I'll go ahead and predict that this will be the highest mark for Kerry in the electoral vote analysis. The numbers will go down from here.

See the maps, graphs and more numbers, and the election simulation.

MY CANDIDATE CAN BEAT UP YOUR CANDIDATE
Commenters on this website and elsewhere have spent valuable time and resources arguing who's the more manly man, the tougher candidate. John Kerry weighed in arguing that the tougher candidate is . . . President Bush, when he said he wanted to fight "a more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side." He added he'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony. (Is he trying to lose?)

Anyway, the argument arose again in July when John Kerry failed to get a pitch over the plate, even though he was 20 feet in front of the mound. Blamed it on the catcher. Not pleased when it was alleged that Senator Swifty throws like a girl, Brian summed up his argument by playing the hockey card:

Oh here we go again...do you need me to pull out the heavy artillery again?

Kerry played hockey, Bush was a cheerleader...

Game Over.

That wasn't enough, he had more argument along these lines when he slammed the book shut with indisputable logic:

Hockey player...Cheerleader...Hockey player...Cheerleader...Hockey player...Cheerleader...Hockey player...Cheerleader...Hockey player...Cheerleader...Hockey player...Cheerleader...Hockey player...Cheerleader...Hockey player...Cheerleader...Hockey player...Cheerleader...Hockey player...Cheerleader...Hockey player...Cheerleader...Hockey player...Cheerleader...

That was fun. But, now it turns out that Bush played Rugby. A game known for drawing blood, breaking limbs and generally making Hockey look like a Haight Ashbury love in. Here's a nice picture of Bush taking a shot at an opponent.

And on the rugby team.



Oh, here's the other guy.