The tactics of Kerry-bashing and Savior from Terrorism worked: Bush has 11 point lead

[Imran Siddiqui]

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Originally posted by MrFun
If Kerry was a pathetic candidate to have chosen, the various polls would show Bush having a much larger, more dramatic lead.


But on another note, all of these polls are getting way too tiring.

He's a pathetic candidate because a better one (Clark, Edwards, Gephardt) would be mopping the floor with Bush. We also wouldn't have to listen to anything about Vietnam.

[GePap]

The democrats have been thinking about their "weakness" when it comes to national security issues, so they thought they needed a war veteran to do well.

The problem is not that Kerry is a veteran- is that the dems, thought they were so far behind on national secuirty they had to trump his record so much, without counting on how vicious the republicans could be in their attacks. Underestimating the viciousness of the republican attack machine is always a moronic move.

[Sava]

[Verto]

I like the idea that the right wing are the demonic vicious attackers, while the left wing is a angelic victim.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Verto
I like the idea that the right wing are the demonic vicious attackers, while the left wing is a angelic victim.

Oh, the dems aren't angelic, and they aren't "victims" in the real sense.

BUt the dem party has never had the discipline of the Republicans, and hence the republicans are able to act with Leninist efficiency, while dems. can at best gain Menshevik efficiency- we all know which ones won out.

The republicans also have a lot more experience running trully nasty campaigns- for all the rightwing whinning this election about "bush bashing", the republicans have had far more experience in "defining" the toher guy with just the right set of negative images and lies or hafl truths, while the Dems either do it clumsily, or are scarred to do it.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Kropotkin
Always important to cast a glance on the methology. Seems to me that TIME might need a crash cource in maths as 1,128+926=1316.

The statement should have been worded... a random sample of 1,316 adults, with 1,128 of those surveyed registered, and 926 of them claiming they were likely to vote

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Kropotkin
For your information:
Methodology: The TIME Poll was conducted August 31 – September 2 by telephone among a random sample of 1,316 adults, including 1,128 reported registered voters and 926 likely voters. The margin of error for registered voters is +/- 3% points, and +/- 4% points for likely voters. Schulman, Ronca, & Bucuvalas (SRBI) Public Affairs conducted the poll, and more complete results are attached.

Always important to cast a glance on the methology. Seems to me that TIME might need a crash cource in maths as 1,128+926=1316.

You may need a crash course on reading comprehension. There is nothing to suggest that some or even all of those indentifying as likely voters could not also indentify as registered voters.

[Winston]

I blame President Bush for not making enough mistakes and putting Kerry ahead.

[Gatekeeper]

These polls are absolutely fascinating. They've gone from polling the "general populace" to polling "registered voters" to polling "registered voters likely to vote." Next thing you know, they're going to "refine" their polling even more, breaking it down to "registered voters likely to vote between 8 and 9 a.m. on Election Day."

Good grief. I'll make up my mind from the reading I do and the candidate debates, thank you very much.

Gatekeeper

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by Winston
I blame President Bush for not making enough mistakes and putting Kerry ahead.

Stupid Bush. It's all his fault.

[lightblue]

Maybe the Dems should jsut throw numbers at Bush. Sorry for the slightly long list, but there's plenty of material...

From an extract of "What We've Lost", by Graydon Carter, published by Little Brown on 9 September, published in todays Independent (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=557746). Couple of choice excerpts:

On Terror

83 Number of times Bush mentioned Saddam, Iraq, or regime (as in change) in his three State of the Union addresses.

0 Number of times Bush mentioned Saudi Arabia in his three State of the Union addresses.

1,700 Percentage increase between 2001 and 2002 of Saudi Arabian spending on public relations in the United States.

79 Percentage of the 11 September hijackers who came from Saudi Arabia.

3 Number of 11 September hijackers whose entry visas came through special US-Saudi "Visa Express" programme.

14 Number of Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) agents assigned to track down 1,200 known illegal immigrants in the United States from countries where al-Qa'ida is active.

$0 Amount approved by George Bush to hire more INS special agents.

$10m Amount Bush cut from the INS's existing terrorism budget.

7 Number of Arabic linguists fired by the US army between mid-August and mid-October 2002 for being gay.

Military Background

1972 Year that Bush walked away from his pilot duties in the Texas National Guard, Nearly two years before his six-year obligation was up.

$3,500 Reward a group of veterans offered in 2000 for anyone who could confirm Bush's Alabama guard service.

600-700 Number of guardsmen who were in Bush's unit during that period.

0 Number of guardsmen from that period who came forward with information about Bush's guard service.

0 Number of minutes that President Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the assistant Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, the former chairman of the Defence Policy Board, Richard Perle, and the White House Chief of Staff, Karl Rove the main proponents of the war in Iraq served in combat (combined).

0 Number of principal civilian or Pentagon staff members who planned the war who have immediate family members serving in uniform in Iraq.

Iraq

2.5 Number of hours after Rumsfeld learnt that Osama bin Laden was a suspect in the 11 September attacks that he brought up reasons to "hit" Iraq.

237 Minimum number of misleading statements on Iraq made by top Bush administration officials between 2002 and January 2004, according to the California Representative Henry Waxman.

$15m Amount of a contract awarded to an American firm to build a cement factory in Iraq.

$80,000 Amount an Iraqi firm spent (using Saddam's confiscated funds) to build the same factory, after delays prevented the American firm from starting it.

2000 Year that Cheney said his policy as CEO of Halliburton oil services company was "we wouldn't do anything in Iraq".

$4.7bn Total value of contracts awarded to Halliburton in Iraq and Afghanistan.

$680m Estimated value of Iraq reconstruction contracts awarded to Bechtel.

$2.8bnValue of Bechtel Corp contracts in Iraq.

92 Percentage of Iraq's urban areas with access to potable water in late 2002.

60 Percentage of Iraq's urban areas with access to potable water in late 2003.

55 Percentage of the Iraqi workforce who were unemployed before the war.

80 Percentage of the Iraqi workforce who are unemployed a Year after the war.

0 Number of American combat deaths in Germany after the Nazi surrender in May 1945.

37 Death toll of US soldiers in Iraq in May 2003, the month combat operations "officially" ended.

0 Number of coffins of dead soldiers returning home that the Bush administration has permitted to be photographed.

0 Number of memorial services for the returned dead that Bush has attended since the beginning of the war.

40,000 Number of soldiers in Iraq seven months after start of the war still without Interceptor vests, designed to stop a round from an AK-47.

$60m Estimated cost of outfitting those 40,000 soldiers with Interceptor vests.

62 Percentage of gas masks that army investigators discovered did Not work properly in autumn 2002.

90 Percentage of detectors which give early warning of a biological weapons attack found to be defective.

87 Percentage of Humvees in Iraq not equipped with armour capable of stopping AK-47 rounds and protecting against roadside bombs and landmines at the end of 2003.

Homeland Security

$3.29 Average amount allocated per person Nationwide in the first round of homeland security grants.

$94.40 Amount allocated per person for homeland security in American Samoa.

$36 Amount allocated per person for homeland security in Wyoming, Vice-President Cheney's home state.

$17 Amount allocated per person in New York state.

$5.87 Amount allocated per person in New York City.

$77.92 Amount allocated per person in New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale University, Bush's alma mater.

76 Percentage of 215 cities surveyed by the US Conference of Mayors in early 2004 that had yet to receive a dime in federal homeland security assistance for their first-response units

95 Percentage of foreign goods that arrive in the United States by sea.

2 Percentage of those goods subjected to thorough inspection.

$5.5bnEstimated cost to secure fully US ports over the Next decade.

$0 Amount Bush allocated for port security in 2003.

$46m Amount the Bush administration has budgeted for port security in 2005.

Economy

87 Percentage of American families in April 2004 who say they have felt no benefit from Bush's tax cuts.

39 Percentage of tax cuts that will go to the top 1 per cent of American families when fully phased in.

49 Percentage of Americans in April 2004 who found that their taxes had actually gone up since Bush took office.

88 Percentage of American families who will save less than $100 on their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and dividends taxes.

$30,858 Amount Bush himself saved in taxes in 2003.

$489bn The US trade deficit in 2003, the worst in history for a single year.

$5.6tr Projected national surplus forecast by the end of the decade when Bush took office in 2001.

$7.22tr US national debt by mid-2004.

9.3m Number of US unemployed in April 2004.

2.3m Number of Americans who lost their jobs during first three Years of the Bush administration.

22m Number of jobs gained during Clinton's eight years in office.

34.6m Number of Americans living below the poverty line (1 in 8 of the population).

6.8m Number of people in the workforce but still classified as poor.

35m Number of Americans that the government defines as "food insecure," in other words, hungry.

$300m Amount cut from the federal programme that provides subsidies to poor families so they can heat their homes.

40 Percentage of wealth in the United States held by the richest 1 per cent of the population.

18 Percentage of wealth in Britain held by the richest 1e per cent of the population.

Factors in his Favour

3 Number of companies that control the US voting technology market.

52 Percentage of votes cast during the 2002 midterm elections that were recorded by Election Systems & Software, the largest voting-technology firm, a big Republican donor.

29 Percentage of votes that will be cast via computer voting machines that don't produce a paper record.

22 Percentage of Americans who believed in May 2003 that Saddam had used his WMDs on US forces.

85 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find Afghanistan, Iraq, or Israel on a map.

30 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find the Pacific Ocean on a map.

75 Percentage of American young adults who don't know the population of the United States.

53 Percentage of Canadian young adults who don't know the population of the United States.

11 Percentage of American young adults who cannot find the United States on a map.

30 Percentage of Americans who believe that "politics and government are too complicated to understand."

23m Number of Evangelicals who voted for Bush in 2000.

50m Number of voters in total who voted for Bush in 2000.

[AnnC]

For some reason, Time counts answers from non-registered respondents - I've noticed that in earlier polls. But if they're trying to do predictive polling, it doesn't make sense.

What matters is Kerry's and Bush's support levels amongst people who are likely to vote.

[Ming]

Originally posted by AnnC
For some reason, Time counts answers from non-registered respondents - I've noticed that in earlier polls. But if they're trying to do predictive polling, it doesn't make sense.

What matters is Kerry's and Bush's support levels amongst people who are likely to vote.

Actually... that's what they did:

If the 2004 election for President were held today, 52% of likely voters surveyed would vote for President George W. Bush, 41% would vote for Democratic nominee John Kerry, and 3% would vote for Ralph Nader, according to a new TIME poll conducted from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2.

With a random survey, they will get people who aren't registered. However, when talking methodology, they were just explaining how many people they contacted, how many of those were registerd, and how many were likely to vote. In the story, they clearly state the the 11% lead was among those likely to vote.

[Vlad Antlerkov]

Originally posted by GePap

Now, lest begin by saying this is a Times Magazine poll, which means it is not worth much and I will wait for more comprehensive Gallup and Zogby polls which shall come out soon enough.

Zogby results here. Zogby's showing Bush ahead, 46-44. Good news for Bush (considering it's Zogby), but with some qualifications:

Originally posted by John Zogby
While the President has improved his numbers, he still has a negative re-elect, job performance, and wrong direction.

So the battle is now engaged. I have written before about the metaphor of the bouncing rubber ball. Take a rubber ball and bounce it as hard as you can. Then the laws of physics take over. The President has gotten three preceding bounces – each one shorter in height and duration. I think this week is the fourth bounce of the ball: this time only into the higher forties and perhaps only lasting a week or so.

Myself, I'm going to reserve judgment until a new round of battleground-state polls comes out.