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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (595218)	7/25/2004 10:27:24 PM
From: Andrew N. Cothran	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

July 252004 The Pre-DNC Toast-O-Meter Just when you thought it had crumbled and blown away in the wind, it's back! The Pre-Democratic Convention Toast-O-Meter is here! The Toast-o-meter: A Weekly News Round-Up and Handicapping of the Race for to be the next President of the United States. . The true contest to either turn George W. Bush into Texas Toast, or John F, Kerry into Burnt French Toast has finally begun and the Toast-O-Meter is back in business to provide you with a weekly round-up of news and commentary links, as well as to assess the current state of the contest. This Week Reading on the the Toast-O-Meter: both Bush and Kerry are a nice shade of light brown, as they come into this week tied in the polls, and with neither enjoying a particular trend in one directon or another. Kerry remains unknown to many in the electorate an must come out of the bread box this week and introduce himself to the non-political junkies in the US. Meanwhile, President Bush is hanging out in Crawford, hoping that Kerry's dough doesn't rise too much after this week. GETTING READY FOR BOSTON The spin is already out. Earlier in July the GOP let it be known that they the expect the Democrats to get up to a 15 point bounce out of the convention while on Meet the Press on 7/25, Ed Rendell proclaimed that the Democrats already got their bounce out of the Edwards pick. So, the expectations game has been set in motion. Rightfully, the pundits have noted that this week is nothing more than an infomercial for Kerry and that he must get the attention of swing voters. Nothing all that new there. One amusing bit that I have noticed in the coverage is that the press nostalgia for conventions past is no longer about brokered fights about nominees (practially no one in the press is old enough to remember those), now it is over the Reagan-Ford negotiations in 1980. This is, of course, amusing, because that means that the key memory of " convention drama" had to do not with the nominee, but with the veep selection. The other bit of nostalgia to look for: the riots! such as 1968 and 1972. Here's some of the pre-convention coverage: Securiity is, of course, a major issue: Confusion reigns as security rules Speaking of security, John Hawkins has a picture of one of the free speech areas at the convention. Joe Gandelman blogging at >Dean's World has the low-down on convention bloggers. Daniel W. Drezner comments on blogs and the convention as well. I know that this is a relief for Kerry: Kucinich endorses Kerry--I mean we wouldn't want a floor fight or anything. Bill Kristol has Four Questions for Kerry, and Ralph Nader notes 12 topics Democrats will duck at convention. (Note to Ralph: the reason we won;t hear that stuff is not because Kerry is in the pocket of coroporate America, but becauase your list is largely leftist tripe). Kerry won't have to worry about crossing any picket lines: Firefighters deal averts DNC picketlines Boston firefighters reached a contract agreement Sunday with the city after a marathon session of negotiations, averting union picketing at delegation welcoming parties for the Democratic National Convention Kerry is going to have do some serious nuancing in regards to Iraq: Delegates Lean Left And Oppose the War NINE out of 10 of the Democratic delegates gathering in Boston this week think the United States should not have gone to war in Iraq and say the gains from the war were not worth the loss of American lives, a New York Times/CBS News poll shows. The delegates are much less supportive of the war than the public is over all, than Democratic voters generally are, and than is reflected by the more nuanced positions of Senators John Kerry and John Edwards, whom they will nominate this week for president and vice president. Indeed, the same story notes that the convention floor audience and the audience he is going to have to try and reach with this convention, are two different entities: The delegates think of themselves — and Mr. Kerry, for that matter — as politically moderate. But on divisive social issues like abortion, the death penalty and gay marriage, the delegates are not only much more liberal than voters in general but substantially more liberal than typical Democratic voters. At every Democratic convention, the delegates hold more liberal positions than rank-and-file Democrats, just as Republican delegates are always more conservative than their voters. That is the nature of political activists. And, the shocker of all schockers in pre-convention coverage: Media Say DNC Restroom Facilities Lacking (Hat tip: Dean's World (Joe Gandelman))