Friday, October 22, 2004
Maytag: The Business of America is Business
People in this big-shouldered town, birthplace of the poet Carl Sandburg, say Maytag broke their hearts. After a decade of tax breaks and union concessions to keep the company in a place that has been making refrigerators for more than 50 years, Maytag closed its factory last month, terminating 1,600 jobs.
Maytag may be done with Galesburg, but Galesburg is not done with Maytag.
District Attorney Paul L. Mangieri wants to sue Maytag to recoup what he says were excess tax breaks in a broad package of incentives to keep the company here. Much of the money, he said, came from a purse that would have gone to schools in this economically fragile community.
"We gave Maytag these incentives, and they accepted them," said Mr. Mangieri, a Navy veteran who grew up in a small town not far from here in western Illinois. "We did it based on faith and trust. If we don't do anything now, it sends a message that we lack the resolve to treat the rich and privileged the same as everybody else."
Maytag says it honored its agreement and took just the breaks to which it was entitled. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/national/20taxes.html?ei=5090&en=4ddc103dfe407c02&ex=1256011200&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=print&position=
Women in Combat Not surprising, as there is a shortage of troops and the legislation re the draft calls for both women and men, ages 18-34.
The Army is negotiating with civilian leaders about eliminating a women-in-combat ban so it can place mixed-sex support companies within warfighting units, starting with a division going to Iraq in January. Despite the legal prohibition, Army plans already have included such collocation of women-men units in blueprints for a lighter force of 10 active divisions, according to Defense Department sources. http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20041022-120846-1796r
Missile Defense: It Doesn’t Work
With the technology we judge could become available within the next 15 years, defending against a single ICBM would require a thousand or more interceptors for a system having the lowest possible mass and providing realistic decision time. Deploying such a system would require at least a five- to tenfold increase over current U.S. space-launch rates.
Hey, we knew that. This report, from the American Physical Society is just confirmation. More:
4. The Airborne Laser now under development could have some capability against liquid-propellant missiles, but it would be ineffective against solid-propellant ICBMs, which are more heat-resistant.
5.The existing U.S. Navy Aegis system, using an interceptor rocket similar to the Standard Missile 2, should be capable of defending against short- or medium-range missiles launched from ships, barges, or other platforms off U.S. coasts. However, interceptor rockets would have to be positioned within a few tens of kilometers of the launch location of the attacking missile.
6.A key problem inherent in boost-phase defense is munitions shortfall: although a successful intercept would prevent munitions from reaching their target, it could cause live nuclear, chemical, or biological munitions to fall on populated areas short of the target, in the United States or other countries. Timing intercepts accurately enough to avoid this problem would be difficult.
http://www.inesap.org/bulletin22/bul22art32.htm
Planting WMDs …with a grain of salt, for now. Via the Pakistan Daily Times:
According to a stunning report posted by a retired Navy Lt Commander and 28-year veteran of the Defense Department (DoD), the Bush administration’s assurance about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was based on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to “plant” WMDs inside the country. Nelda Rogers, the Pentagon whistleblower, claims the plan failed when the secret mission was mistakenly taken out by “friendly fire”, the Environmentalists Against War report.Nelda Rogers is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the DoD. She has become so concerned for her safety that she decided to tell the story about this latest CIA-military fiasco in Iraq. According to Al Martin Raw.com, “Ms Rogers is number two in the chain of command within this DoD special intelligence office. This is a ten-person debriefing unit within the central debriefing office for the Department of Defense.” http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_12-8-2003_pg1_9
Crummy Economy
The Index of Leading Economic Indicators, a widely watched barometer of future economic activity, edged lower in September for the fourth month in a row, indicating a slowing in economic growth, a private research group reported Thursday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6298650/
Bush Administration Supports the Troops. Familiar.
The number of uninsured veterans jumped by 235,000 since 2000, meaning they are losing health insurance at a faster rate than the general population, said Physicians for a National Health Program......the report traced some of the increase to the Bush administration's decision last year to suspend health care services for higher-income veterans in order to reduce waiting times for doctor's appointments.Other veterans reported that they were on waiting lists for appointments, could not afford co-payments or lived in communities with no veterans' facilities, the report said.
Another 3.9 million people without health insurance live in veterans' households and also are ineligible for veterans' health care, the report said.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041019/ap_on_he_me/veterans_health_1
Bush Tax Cuts = Less Money
We knew this- Fed cuts mean that state taxes or fees, tuitions, property tax, etc. get raised. But worth repeating to them swing folk, amongst others.
The basics:
Tuition at the nation's public universities rose an average of 10.5 percent this year, the second-largest increase in more than a decade, according to the annual survey released today by the College Board. Last year's rise, 13 percent, was the highest.
Private universities and community colleges also increased tuition -- by 6 percent and 9 percent respectively, in a year when inflation has been hovering at about 2.5 percent. The tuition increases at private and community colleges were also among the steepest in a decade.
Bill O’Reilly, Mary Cheney, Karl Rove: from Frank Rich.
And guys, if you exploit a girl, it will come back to get you. That's called 'karma.' "- Bill O'Reilly, "The O'Reilly Factor for Kids"
Hmm. That doesn’t fit well with the current lawsuit brought by a former Asst. Producer at FOX. Rich’s article- in this coming Sunday’s NY Times- connects O’Reilly’s travails with the Mary Cheney flap.
To understand what strange game is playing out here, you must go back to the equally close 2000 election. In the campaign postmortems, Karl Rove famously attributed his candidate's shortfall in the popular vote to four million "fundamentalists and evangelicals" in the Republican base who didn't turn up on Election Day. A common theory among Bush operatives had it that these no-shows had been alienated by the pre-election revelation of Mr. Bush's arrest for drunk driving years earlier.
The current Bush-Cheney campaign clearly believes that for these voters, Mary Cheney's sexuality could be a last-minute turnoff equivalent to Mr. Bush's D.U.I. history. When Rich Lowry of National Review said on Fox that "millions and millions of people" were not aware that Mary Cheney was gay until Mr. Kerry brought it up, it was clear just which four million he was talking about. Mr. Kerry, his critics all speculate, was deliberately seeking to depress voter turnout among Mr. Rove's M.I.A. religious conservatives by broadcasting Mary Cheney's sexuality to them for the first time.
To buy this theory you have to believe that by this late date a large group of potential voters obsessed with homosexuality didn't yet know that Ms. Cheney is gay. I find that preposterous, but only Mr. Kerry knows if he thought so and if his intentions were so smarmily Machiavellian. Even if they were, there's no ambiguity about what the Bush campaign is up to. Mr. Rove can out-Machiavelli Mr. Kerry anytime. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/arts/24rich.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
Election Ad:
Kerry has pulled punches, “taken the high road”. Not everyone has. Here’s an independent ad to view that reminds the voter that Bush is a flip, non-empathic frat boy.
Pollsters Greenberg, Quinlan & Rosner tested the ad and found that after viewing it just once, there was an almost unprecedented 8 point gross shift away from Bush in voting intentions among the 750-person test sample. It also badly eroded support for Bush across a wide range of measures including confidence in his Iraq policy and key measures of character including honesty and sharing the concerns of ordinary people. http://www.winbackrespect.org/ads/
Such must be used, including the many effective ones made by Errol Morris... in which he interviewed Republicans who were voting against Bush…but that the Kerry campaign had passed on. Utilizing the above ads would be more effective than joining a goose hunt in Ohio.
Fraud, (cont.) Maybe we should invite election observers from Afghanistan and Iraq- Bob Kuttner provides a fine summary of Democracy in Trouble:
THE REPUBLICANS are out to steal the 2004 election -- before, during, and after Election Day. Before Election Day, they are employing such dirty tricks as improper purges of voter rolls, use of dummy registration groups that tear up Democratic registrations, and the suppression of Democratic efforts to sign up voters, especially blacks and students.
On Election Day, Republicans will attempt to intimidate minority voters by having poll watchers threaten criminal prosecution if something is technically amiss with their ID, and they will again use technical mishaps to partisan advantage.
But the most serious assault on democracy itself is likely to come after Election Day.
Here is a flat prediction: If neither candidate wins decisively, the Bush campaign will contrive enough court challenges in enough states so that we won't know the winner election night. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/20/the_art_of_stealing_elections?mode=PF
And, Paul Krugman similarly notes:
If he election were held today and the votes were counted fairly, Senator John Kerry would probably win. But the votes won't be counted fairly, and the disenfranchisement of minority voters may determine the outcome. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/opinion/22krugman.html?oref=login&hp
Two more (possible) examples (from Pennsylvania and Florida):
An ostensibly nonpartisan voter registration drive in Western Pennsylvania has triggered accusations that workers were cheated out of wages and given instructions to avoid adding anyone to the voter rolls who might support the Democratic presidential nominee. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04294/398767.stm
Students at UCF and two local community colleges claim they were duped into switching their party affiliations from Democrat to Republican, campus police officials said Tuesday. http://www.wftv.com/news/3831251/detail.html
[Not so]Invisible Edwards: From Thursday’s speech in Iowa:
Not bad
"There’s a problem when our troops are in harm’s way, fighting for a secure Iraq and our national security adviser is out on the stump campaigning instead of working.
“There’s a problem when the Vice President is warning of a nuclear attack and the Homeland Security Secretary who has declared that he is separate from politics spends the bulk of his time traveling battleground states.
“There’s a problem when there is a flu shot shortage and the Secretary of Health and Human Services is too busy advocating for George Bush instead of those who most need these shots.
“There’s a problem when the economy has lost 800,000 jobs and the Treasury Secretary is out on the stump calling these losses a myth instead of focusing on bringing them back.
“There’s a problem when the Chinese are playing fast and loose with our trade agreements and the Commerce Secretary is acting like it’s having no impact on our manufacturing companies here at home.
“But I know how to fix this problem – it’s called Election Day. On November 2, we’re going to cast the votes to put John Kerry into the White House and we’re going to nip this problem in the bud.”
The Liberal Media:
This has been a pattern: When Kerry leads by 1 – 3 points, i.e. within the margin of error, the headline is “Kerry-Bush even” or similar. When Bush has the same margin, it’s “Bush establishes lead” or similar. It’s happened again in 2 Yahoo postings:
The AP:
President Bush and Sen. John Kerry are locked in a tie for the popular vote, according to an Associated Press poll, while a chunk of voters vacillate between their desire for change and their doubts about the alternative. ..The result is deadlock. In the survey of 976 likely voters, Democrats Kerry and Sen. John Edwards had 49 percent, compared to 46 percent for Republicans Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&e=3&u=/ap/20041021/ap_on_el_pr/president_ap_poll
Reuters:
President Bush opened a slight one-point lead on Democratic rival John Kerry in a tight race for the White House, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Thursday. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=2&u=/nm/20041021/pl_nm/campaign_poll_thursday_dc
(lots of) Polls: Throw out Fox, and Ohio looks better
Ohio: Kerry 47, Bush 47 (Rasmussen)
Ohio: Bush 49, Kerry 44 (Fox News)
Ohio: Kerry 49, Bush 47 (Survey USA)
Ohio: Kerry 50, Bush 47 (ABC News)
Florida: Bush 45, Kerry 43 (Quinnipiac)
Wisconsin: Bush 48, Kerry 47 (University of Minnesota)
Wisconsin: Kerry 48, Bush 43 (St. Norbert College)
Wisconsin: Kerry 47, Bush 47 (ARG)
New Hampshire: Bush 47, Kerry 46 (ARG)
New Mexico: Kerry 48, Bush 46 (ARG)
Florida: Kerry 45, Bush 44 (University of North Florida)
Florida: Bush 48, Kerry 45 (Oralando Sentinel)
West Virginia: Bush 47, Kerry 45 (Global Strategy Group)
Electoral:
Electoral Vote Predictor: Kerry 284, Bush 247
The Hotline: Bush 227, Kerry 214
2.004k.com: Kerry 289, Bush 232
Slate: Kerry 284, Bush 254
Race 2004: Kerry 218, Bush 205
MyDD: Kerry 316, Bush 222
*Pew Research Center poll shows "the presidential race is again extremely close." President Bush and Sen. John Kerry are tied at 45% to 45% among registered voters, and 47% to 47% among likely voters.
*Economist Poll: Kerry leading Bush, 48% to 46%.
*Marist College poll: each candidate with 47% of registered voters
*AP-Ipsos Public Affairs poll: Kerry is leading Bush 49% to 46%. Most striking: "Some 56% say the country is on the wrong track."
*Harris Interactive poll: Bush leading Kerry, 48% to 46%, among likely voters.
-R
People in this big-shouldered town, birthplace of the poet Carl Sandburg, say Maytag broke their hearts. After a decade of tax breaks and union concessions to keep the company in a place that has been making refrigerators for more than 50 years, Maytag closed its factory last month, terminating 1,600 jobs.
Maytag may be done with Galesburg, but Galesburg is not done with Maytag.
District Attorney Paul L. Mangieri wants to sue Maytag to recoup what he says were excess tax breaks in a broad package of incentives to keep the company here. Much of the money, he said, came from a purse that would have gone to schools in this economically fragile community.
"We gave Maytag these incentives, and they accepted them," said Mr. Mangieri, a Navy veteran who grew up in a small town not far from here in western Illinois. "We did it based on faith and trust. If we don't do anything now, it sends a message that we lack the resolve to treat the rich and privileged the same as everybody else."
Maytag says it honored its agreement and took just the breaks to which it was entitled. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/national/20taxes.html?ei=5090&en=4ddc103dfe407c02&ex=1256011200&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=print&position=
Women in Combat Not surprising, as there is a shortage of troops and the legislation re the draft calls for both women and men, ages 18-34.
The Army is negotiating with civilian leaders about eliminating a women-in-combat ban so it can place mixed-sex support companies within warfighting units, starting with a division going to Iraq in January. Despite the legal prohibition, Army plans already have included such collocation of women-men units in blueprints for a lighter force of 10 active divisions, according to Defense Department sources. http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20041022-120846-1796r
Missile Defense: It Doesn’t Work
With the technology we judge could become available within the next 15 years, defending against a single ICBM would require a thousand or more interceptors for a system having the lowest possible mass and providing realistic decision time. Deploying such a system would require at least a five- to tenfold increase over current U.S. space-launch rates.
Hey, we knew that. This report, from the American Physical Society is just confirmation. More:
4. The Airborne Laser now under development could have some capability against liquid-propellant missiles, but it would be ineffective against solid-propellant ICBMs, which are more heat-resistant.
5.The existing U.S. Navy Aegis system, using an interceptor rocket similar to the Standard Missile 2, should be capable of defending against short- or medium-range missiles launched from ships, barges, or other platforms off U.S. coasts. However, interceptor rockets would have to be positioned within a few tens of kilometers of the launch location of the attacking missile.
6.A key problem inherent in boost-phase defense is munitions shortfall: although a successful intercept would prevent munitions from reaching their target, it could cause live nuclear, chemical, or biological munitions to fall on populated areas short of the target, in the United States or other countries. Timing intercepts accurately enough to avoid this problem would be difficult.
http://www.inesap.org/bulletin22/bul22art32.htm
Planting WMDs …with a grain of salt, for now. Via the Pakistan Daily Times:
According to a stunning report posted by a retired Navy Lt Commander and 28-year veteran of the Defense Department (DoD), the Bush administration’s assurance about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was based on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to “plant” WMDs inside the country. Nelda Rogers, the Pentagon whistleblower, claims the plan failed when the secret mission was mistakenly taken out by “friendly fire”, the Environmentalists Against War report.Nelda Rogers is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the DoD. She has become so concerned for her safety that she decided to tell the story about this latest CIA-military fiasco in Iraq. According to Al Martin Raw.com, “Ms Rogers is number two in the chain of command within this DoD special intelligence office. This is a ten-person debriefing unit within the central debriefing office for the Department of Defense.” http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_12-8-2003_pg1_9
Crummy Economy
The Index of Leading Economic Indicators, a widely watched barometer of future economic activity, edged lower in September for the fourth month in a row, indicating a slowing in economic growth, a private research group reported Thursday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6298650/
Bush Administration Supports the Troops. Familiar.
The number of uninsured veterans jumped by 235,000 since 2000, meaning they are losing health insurance at a faster rate than the general population, said Physicians for a National Health Program......the report traced some of the increase to the Bush administration's decision last year to suspend health care services for higher-income veterans in order to reduce waiting times for doctor's appointments.Other veterans reported that they were on waiting lists for appointments, could not afford co-payments or lived in communities with no veterans' facilities, the report said.
Another 3.9 million people without health insurance live in veterans' households and also are ineligible for veterans' health care, the report said.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041019/ap_on_he_me/veterans_health_1
Bush Tax Cuts = Less Money
We knew this- Fed cuts mean that state taxes or fees, tuitions, property tax, etc. get raised. But worth repeating to them swing folk, amongst others.
The basics:
Tuition at the nation's public universities rose an average of 10.5 percent this year, the second-largest increase in more than a decade, according to the annual survey released today by the College Board. Last year's rise, 13 percent, was the highest.
Private universities and community colleges also increased tuition -- by 6 percent and 9 percent respectively, in a year when inflation has been hovering at about 2.5 percent. The tuition increases at private and community colleges were also among the steepest in a decade.
Bill O’Reilly, Mary Cheney, Karl Rove: from Frank Rich.
And guys, if you exploit a girl, it will come back to get you. That's called 'karma.' "- Bill O'Reilly, "The O'Reilly Factor for Kids"
Hmm. That doesn’t fit well with the current lawsuit brought by a former Asst. Producer at FOX. Rich’s article- in this coming Sunday’s NY Times- connects O’Reilly’s travails with the Mary Cheney flap.
To understand what strange game is playing out here, you must go back to the equally close 2000 election. In the campaign postmortems, Karl Rove famously attributed his candidate's shortfall in the popular vote to four million "fundamentalists and evangelicals" in the Republican base who didn't turn up on Election Day. A common theory among Bush operatives had it that these no-shows had been alienated by the pre-election revelation of Mr. Bush's arrest for drunk driving years earlier.
The current Bush-Cheney campaign clearly believes that for these voters, Mary Cheney's sexuality could be a last-minute turnoff equivalent to Mr. Bush's D.U.I. history. When Rich Lowry of National Review said on Fox that "millions and millions of people" were not aware that Mary Cheney was gay until Mr. Kerry brought it up, it was clear just which four million he was talking about. Mr. Kerry, his critics all speculate, was deliberately seeking to depress voter turnout among Mr. Rove's M.I.A. religious conservatives by broadcasting Mary Cheney's sexuality to them for the first time.
To buy this theory you have to believe that by this late date a large group of potential voters obsessed with homosexuality didn't yet know that Ms. Cheney is gay. I find that preposterous, but only Mr. Kerry knows if he thought so and if his intentions were so smarmily Machiavellian. Even if they were, there's no ambiguity about what the Bush campaign is up to. Mr. Rove can out-Machiavelli Mr. Kerry anytime. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/arts/24rich.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
Election Ad:
Kerry has pulled punches, “taken the high road”. Not everyone has. Here’s an independent ad to view that reminds the voter that Bush is a flip, non-empathic frat boy.
Pollsters Greenberg, Quinlan & Rosner tested the ad and found that after viewing it just once, there was an almost unprecedented 8 point gross shift away from Bush in voting intentions among the 750-person test sample. It also badly eroded support for Bush across a wide range of measures including confidence in his Iraq policy and key measures of character including honesty and sharing the concerns of ordinary people. http://www.winbackrespect.org/ads/
Such must be used, including the many effective ones made by Errol Morris... in which he interviewed Republicans who were voting against Bush…but that the Kerry campaign had passed on. Utilizing the above ads would be more effective than joining a goose hunt in Ohio.
Fraud, (cont.) Maybe we should invite election observers from Afghanistan and Iraq- Bob Kuttner provides a fine summary of Democracy in Trouble:
THE REPUBLICANS are out to steal the 2004 election -- before, during, and after Election Day. Before Election Day, they are employing such dirty tricks as improper purges of voter rolls, use of dummy registration groups that tear up Democratic registrations, and the suppression of Democratic efforts to sign up voters, especially blacks and students.
On Election Day, Republicans will attempt to intimidate minority voters by having poll watchers threaten criminal prosecution if something is technically amiss with their ID, and they will again use technical mishaps to partisan advantage.
But the most serious assault on democracy itself is likely to come after Election Day.
Here is a flat prediction: If neither candidate wins decisively, the Bush campaign will contrive enough court challenges in enough states so that we won't know the winner election night. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/20/the_art_of_stealing_elections?mode=PF
And, Paul Krugman similarly notes:
If he election were held today and the votes were counted fairly, Senator John Kerry would probably win. But the votes won't be counted fairly, and the disenfranchisement of minority voters may determine the outcome. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/opinion/22krugman.html?oref=login&hp
Two more (possible) examples (from Pennsylvania and Florida):
An ostensibly nonpartisan voter registration drive in Western Pennsylvania has triggered accusations that workers were cheated out of wages and given instructions to avoid adding anyone to the voter rolls who might support the Democratic presidential nominee. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04294/398767.stm
Students at UCF and two local community colleges claim they were duped into switching their party affiliations from Democrat to Republican, campus police officials said Tuesday. http://www.wftv.com/news/3831251/detail.html
[Not so]Invisible Edwards: From Thursday’s speech in Iowa:
Not bad
"There’s a problem when our troops are in harm’s way, fighting for a secure Iraq and our national security adviser is out on the stump campaigning instead of working.
“There’s a problem when the Vice President is warning of a nuclear attack and the Homeland Security Secretary who has declared that he is separate from politics spends the bulk of his time traveling battleground states.
“There’s a problem when there is a flu shot shortage and the Secretary of Health and Human Services is too busy advocating for George Bush instead of those who most need these shots.
“There’s a problem when the economy has lost 800,000 jobs and the Treasury Secretary is out on the stump calling these losses a myth instead of focusing on bringing them back.
“There’s a problem when the Chinese are playing fast and loose with our trade agreements and the Commerce Secretary is acting like it’s having no impact on our manufacturing companies here at home.
“But I know how to fix this problem – it’s called Election Day. On November 2, we’re going to cast the votes to put John Kerry into the White House and we’re going to nip this problem in the bud.”
The Liberal Media:
This has been a pattern: When Kerry leads by 1 – 3 points, i.e. within the margin of error, the headline is “Kerry-Bush even” or similar. When Bush has the same margin, it’s “Bush establishes lead” or similar. It’s happened again in 2 Yahoo postings:
The AP:
President Bush and Sen. John Kerry are locked in a tie for the popular vote, according to an Associated Press poll, while a chunk of voters vacillate between their desire for change and their doubts about the alternative. ..The result is deadlock. In the survey of 976 likely voters, Democrats Kerry and Sen. John Edwards had 49 percent, compared to 46 percent for Republicans Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&e=3&u=/ap/20041021/ap_on_el_pr/president_ap_poll
Reuters:
President Bush opened a slight one-point lead on Democratic rival John Kerry in a tight race for the White House, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Thursday. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=2&u=/nm/20041021/pl_nm/campaign_poll_thursday_dc
(lots of) Polls: Throw out Fox, and Ohio looks better
Ohio: Kerry 47, Bush 47 (Rasmussen)
Ohio: Bush 49, Kerry 44 (Fox News)
Ohio: Kerry 49, Bush 47 (Survey USA)
Ohio: Kerry 50, Bush 47 (ABC News)
Florida: Bush 45, Kerry 43 (Quinnipiac)
Wisconsin: Bush 48, Kerry 47 (University of Minnesota)
Wisconsin: Kerry 48, Bush 43 (St. Norbert College)
Wisconsin: Kerry 47, Bush 47 (ARG)
New Hampshire: Bush 47, Kerry 46 (ARG)
New Mexico: Kerry 48, Bush 46 (ARG)
Florida: Kerry 45, Bush 44 (University of North Florida)
Florida: Bush 48, Kerry 45 (Oralando Sentinel)
West Virginia: Bush 47, Kerry 45 (Global Strategy Group)
Electoral:
Electoral Vote Predictor: Kerry 284, Bush 247
The Hotline: Bush 227, Kerry 214
2.004k.com: Kerry 289, Bush 232
Slate: Kerry 284, Bush 254
Race 2004: Kerry 218, Bush 205
MyDD: Kerry 316, Bush 222
*Pew Research Center poll shows "the presidential race is again extremely close." President Bush and Sen. John Kerry are tied at 45% to 45% among registered voters, and 47% to 47% among likely voters.
*Economist Poll: Kerry leading Bush, 48% to 46%.
*Marist College poll: each candidate with 47% of registered voters
*AP-Ipsos Public Affairs poll: Kerry is leading Bush 49% to 46%. Most striking: "Some 56% say the country is on the wrong track."
*Harris Interactive poll: Bush leading Kerry, 48% to 46%, among likely voters.
-R
