PRESIDENT IN POLL STUMBLE By STEFAN C. FRIEDMAN
Riding the momentum of his dominating debate performance, Sen. John Kerry has grabbed the lead over President Bush, a national poll released yesterday revealed.
In a two-way match-up, the Kerry-Edwards ticket leads Bush-Cheney 49 percent to 46 percent, according to a Newsweek poll of registered voters. With Ralph Nader in the race, the Democratic ticket's lead drops to 47 percent to 45 percent.
Both leads are inside the poll's four-point margin of error.
Kerry was trailing Bush in most national polls going into the debate. But his winning performance Thursday night has turned things around for the moment, the poll indicated.
Fifty-seven percent of those polled said they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States, and Bush's job-approval rating has dropped six points from the days immediately following the Republican convention, according to the Newsweek numbers.
However, 60 percent of those polled said they knew what Bush stood for, while only 38 percent could say the same about Kerry.
Fifty-two percent said Bush would handle issues of terrorism and homeland security better than Kerry, while the same number said Kerry would better handle the economy.
A 66 percent majority said Bush says what he believes and not what people want to hear, while only 48 percent agreed that Kerry did the same.
A pair of Los Angeles Times polls conducted before and after the debate showed Kerry doubling a one-point edge over Bush to 49 percent to 47 percent. Both polls had a four-point margin of error.
The newspaper's poll also found Kerry's favorable-perception rating increased from 52 percent to 57 percent.
Still, a spokesman for the Kerry campaign was careful not to boast about the Massachusetts senator's dramatic turnaround.
"We've said all along that it's going to be a tight race," said Chad Clanton. "We didn't wring our hands when the polls were down, and we're not going to brag when the polls are good."
On the campaign trail Bush continued to bang the drum on foreign policy, saying a "Kerry doctrine" on terrorism would risk America's security.
Making his 27th trip as president to the swing state of Ohio, Bush lambasted Kerry for saying that he would order a pre-emptive strike on another country only if the situation passed a global test.
"When our country is in danger, it is not the president's job to take an international poll; the president's job is to defend America," he said to the National Association of Home Builders in Columbus.
Less than a week before the candidates' debate in St. Louis on a range of subjects — including the economy — Kerry honed in on economic issues, slamming Bush over his two rounds of tax cuts.
"George Bush has given more to those with the most at the expense of the middle-class working families who are struggling to get ahead and reach the American dream," Kerry said at a Florida high school.
"In fact, the only people George Bush's policies are working for are the people he chooses to help. They're working for drug companies. They're working for oil companies . . . and they're certainly working for Halliburton."