Kerry Spot [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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FROM A SOURCE CLOSE TO THE CAMPAIGN [10/28 02:07 PM]
Just heard from a source close to the campaign, tuned in to the conversations at the highest levels.
According to the Bushies, the last few days have seen a huge burst of momentum in their numbers.
They think Bush is ahead by a few points nationally. They expect the next round of tracking polls to show a bit of a bump.
The internal polls show a significant lead in Florida (outside margin of error) and Arkansas is out of play, with a Bill Clinton visit or without. As for most of the other big ones - Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, internal polls show all too close to call.
Michigan is seriously looking like a pickup - Bush and Cheney could be there four times in the last four days.
An exit poll of those who have already voted show Bush ahead by 15 points! [UPDATE: This is ahead 15 points overall, nationwide, not just in Michigan. Obviously, those who have already voted are only a small, small segment of the electorate at large, so one should not read too much into this number. But it is interesting.]
Undecided voters appear to be breaking Bush’s way - some days he has a slight lead, other days it’s right around 50-50. (Note this would be considerably better than the 1/3 calculated that Bush needs here.
Finally, the ammo dump story appears to have left the Kerry campaign deep in al-Qaqaa.
Tommy Franks is going to enter this story and rip Kerry and the New York Times a new one. The Kerry folks are acting like they realized they have botched this story, and want to shift back to domestic topics. Lockhart, Bill Richardson on Imus — when asked about al-QaQaa, they dodge the question and quickly try to bring up other issues.
The campaign is going to avoid the Russian angle and go with the straightforward, “As the facts mount in this story, American people have a choice between believing Kerry-NYTimes-CBS or believing Bush and the Troops.”
This source close to the campaign didn’t say it, but I wonder if the Bush administration wants to deal with Russia in its own manner, and not have whatever diplomatic confrontations are going on behind the scenes complicated by a furious American electorate blaming Russia for hiding Iraq’s weapons and explosives.
A STRATEGY TO GET BUSH TO HAWAII [10/28 12:50 PM]
[GOD, I WISH HE WOULD DO THIS! THEY COULD USE THE ALOHA BOWL STADIUM. DO A FLYOVER.]
This is from Kerry Spot reader Justin, who may make a great campaign consultant someday:
If I was part of the Bush campaign, I would seriously consider a brief trip to Hawaii. Two big questions:
How could he do it without costing up time in other battleground states?
By using the time zones to his advantage, Bush could pull it off. Most of the campaigning takes place in the Central and Eastern Time Zones. Hawaii is five hours behind Central Time and six hours behind Eastern Time. If he left the Central or Eastern time zone in the late afternoon/early evening, he could arrive in Hawaii for a late rally. Jump off the Air Force One and deliver the stump speech while the rest of the US sleeps, and then head back stateside overnight. It would be a very brief visit, but it could be done. Remember too, that Saturday night provides an extra hour due to Daylight Savings Time.
Why would he do it? First, Hawaii may be close. The RCP average shows Bush with a .9% lead. Second, a visit to the islands would get more than it's fair share of press. Coverage would see this as brilliant at best and only a novelty at worst. Third, there's probably no state in the union that would have as high an electoral payoff relative to the amount of time actually spent in the state. A few hours on the ground could reap huge benefits in a close state because these are voters that are historically ignored. A candidate who meets with them face to face - even if it's brief - could sway a lot of undecided voters. Finally, a surprise overnight trip partways around the globe could remind some voters Bush's Thanksgiving trip to Iraq which was one of the highlights of his term in office which certainly wouldn't be a bad reminder.
I'm not a travel or campaign logistics expert, but I think if he could pull this off, 4 electoral votes in Hawaii would be a whole lot easier to mine with just one visit than the war of attrition that is the battle for New Hampshire's four votes.
I think the idea is brilliant, but then again, what do I know? |
