<http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote.html>
NEWS SUMMARY
Today, The Note gets all serious and macro.
It is our most fundamental job to regularly tell you three things:
1. where the presidential race stands
2. that where the race stands now is only a snapshot
3. that things can change
And/but the reality is - as amazing as this seems - this is now John Kerry's contest to lose.
Forget the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs (and Team Bush's inability - so far - to enunciate a second-term jobs/growth agenda or find a compelling Rubinesque spokesperson on the economy).
Forget the fact that that we still can't find a single American who voted for Al Gore in 2000 who is planning to vote for George Bush in 2004. (If you are that elusive figure, e-mail us and tell us who you are and why: politicalunit at abcnews.com.)
Forget the fact that California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey (sorry, Matthew) aren't in play and never were.
Forget the latest polling out of Ohio (and perhaps Florida Š .).
Forget the extraordinary anti-Bush energy that exists on the left and the "how-do-we-whip-our-folks-up?" dilemma that exists on the right.
Forget the various signs that the Democratic challenger is playing in battleground areas for the middle and the president seems geographically and issues-wise to be still shoring up the base.
Forget the persistence of the Democratic advantage on the congressional generic poll question.
Forget the current ad spending advantage the DNC/anti-Bush 527s have over BC04RNC - while John Kerry pinches pennies.
But remember the poisonous job approval, re-elect, and wrong track numbers that hang around the president's neck to this day and then consider the very smart, mustest-of-read essay by Charlie Cook, in which the Zen Master surveys the troubling (and consistently so Š ) poll numbers of the incumbent and renders this spot on verdict: <http://nationaljournal.com/members/buzz/2004/races/081004.htm>
(Now is the time to subscribe to National Journal's outstanding website if you don't already, because you need to read the whole thing.)
"President Bush must have a change in the dynamics and the fundamentals of this race if he is to win a second term. The sluggishly recovering economy and renewed violence in Iraq don't seem likely to positively affect this race, but something needs to happen. It is extremely unlikely that President Bush will get much more than one-fourth of the undecided vote, and if that is the case, he will need to be walking into Election Day with a clear lead of perhaps three percentage points."
"This election is certainly not over, but for me, it will be a matter of watching for events or circumstances that will fundamentally change the existing equation - one that for now favors a challenger over an incumbent."
Now, the last thing we want is for Rush Limbaugh to quote from The Note for the third straight day LINK
(OK, we lied, that is the SECOND-to-last thing we want; the LAST thing we want is for Rush to quote from us again AND non-smug Wonkette to quote Rush quoting us Š . LINK).
But this is the reality of the race right now, and it is best that everyone knows it. And, as we suggested, there is still plenty of time (and a convention and some debates and world events) for all this to change.
However, there are swirling developments that give one pause.
First off, the new Bush-Cheney TV ad - "Solemn Promise" - out this morning. LINK
The entire ad has the same setting: just a shot (from a side angle) of George W. and Laura Bush. George W. Bush is looking casual in a short-sleeved t-shirt and Laura Bush is in green. There are occasional close-ups of Bush's hand gestures and then a close-up of his face. Through the ad, Laura Bush looks onward as George W. Bush speaks and nods. They seem to be sitting on a couch and appear to be in a home office of sorts (There's a vague view of a desk in the background.).
The spoken words of the Commander-in-Chief:
"My most solemn duty is to lead our nation , to protect ourselves. I can't imagine the great agony of a mom or a dad having to make the decision about which child to pick up first on September the 11th. We cannot hesitate, we cannot yield, we must do everything in our power to bring an enemy to justice before they hurt us again."
We don't mean to diminish the power of 9/11 or the president's bond with many of the American people over it, but surely there will be for some a whiff of the desperate in using this thematic now, on the eve of the New York convention and when the Bush-Cheney second term agenda is supposed to be being fleshed out.
We know, we know, we know that the pledge to keep us safer is part of that second term agenda, but what else?
We think that issue of who will keep America safer is a perfectly legit one for both sides to argue, and maybe battleground state voters will like to hear about it in a dollop of thirty-second orchestral emotion, but we think it is possible that this will be seen (at least by The Filter) as over the top.
There's also the president's (self-consciously true?) stump line that the best reason to re-elect him is four more years of Laura Bush as First Lady. We think the verbal irony of that speaks for itself.
And there is also the now daily using of Drudge (and Fox and the New York Post ) to try to juice the news cycle with various blasts-from-the-past-into-the-present about John and Teresa Heinz Kerry that we find so transparently desperate that it makes us feel more indignity than that which wells up when John McCain and John Weaver share a booth at Clyde's and reminisce about 2000.
That ALMOST speaks for itself. More on that to come.
Trying to push this boulder up a hill, President Bush, with Senator John McCain, participates in an "Ask President Bush" event at 3:50 pm in Albuquerque and speaks at a rally with Senator McCain at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum at 9:00 pm in Phoenix.