Good News – Moon of Alabama

October 31, 2004

Good News

Just stumbled over this piece of good news:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush holds a 49-to-43 percent edge over his Democratic rival in the latest CNN/Time poll, conducted Wednesday and Thursday.

The poll of 2,060 adult Americans, including 1,076 likely voters, has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points and is thus in essential agreement with a CNN/USA Today/Gallup tracking poll also released Friday. That poll gives Bush a 52 percent-39 percent edge. More important, both polls show the same snapshot of the current state of the presidential campaign: a solid advantage for Bush.

CNN/Time poll: Bush holds edge

Posted by b on October 31, 2004 at 13:43 UTC | Permalink

Comments

The poll was taken pre-DUI. The Gore campaign’s unloading of that bomb the weekend before the election did a lot of damage, like the RDX story might have this time around, had CBS been able to hold it until tonight.
I predicted a Gore win last time. I was half right (or completely right, if you subscribe to the stolen election senario.) I predict a Bush win this time and, who knows?, perhaps he’ll take the popular vote and Kerry will walk away with the only thing that matters – the EC. Then we can finally put to bed much rancor and heartbreak.

Posted by: Pat | Oct 31 2004 14:30 utc | 1

That poll has been flying around the internet for a few days and it is good news. In current polling Bushies negatives are up, and the race is even. Bushie barely pulled out the last election with a large poll lead going into the last election. I believe Bushie is toast on Tuesday. Bye, bye Bushhie, bye, bye.
I have really noticed the change in strategy since the Clinton people came in to help. Joe Lockhart and Mike McCurry. These guys have focused on hammering Bushie and driving up his negatives. Even when the OBL tape came out, Kerry took a sort of nuetrat stance but still injected the “see, OBL is still running around, I will hunt the terrorist down” etc. etc. Clintons boys have the war room in full charge mode.
Also, while I questioned the strategy of not answering the swift boat ads, it looks like it was a good strategy because we are not hearing a word from them, the story has died, and Kerry has plenty of money left to make the hard push in the end. But I do say the debates will be the point that Kerry took over the election if he wins on Tuesday.
But remember everyone, if Kerry is elected it is only a stepping stone to a more progressive agenda for the US. We must move forward and be ever pushing for the progressive agenda that includes good jobs, an energy policy thats sane, and taxation that doesn’t suck money from the lower classes to pay for government.

Posted by: jdp | Oct 31 2004 14:49 utc | 2

Heck.
It is good news.
But this isn’t last year…the media clearly biases its polls to show a close race when any fool can see that W is toast…
If the votes are counted.
They will not be, for reasons I assume patrons of MOA know well.
There will be election-day chaos, multiple state and fed lawsuits, and the whole schmear will be tossed to the Supremes in a month or two…and W will be in.
If Kerry is elected somehow, I agree we have lots to whip on–repealing the Patriot Act, ending the asinine war, appointing sane people to the courts, and ending the stupid godforsaken idiotic self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating War on Terror.
But I don’t figure W and crew wish to be prosecuted for violating the Geneva Convention under our own, domestic, gen-u-wine federal law–The War Crimes Act, which provides for the death penalty. Anyone who thinks these brazen freaks are going down in a simple election has managed to hang on to optimism I can no longer summon.
Yeah. The weasels are definitely circling. And my aim and eyesight grow weak–

Posted by: thepuffin | Oct 31 2004 15:20 utc | 3

Tim Russert is a “media whore”. Just watched him on msnbc “interview” Giuliani. It went on like this:

RUSSERT: Let me ask you a random question that will allow you to recite your RNC talking points. And remember that I will not stop your spin to correct the facts.
GIULIANI: That’s a tough question, Tim. … Americans united after 9/11 … Kerry anti-military , coz had reversed flag on the cover of his book 30 years ago, against Gulf War I , against Reagan weapons programs … 9/11 took away 1 mln jobs … Bush magically turned around economy … Osama is our enemy in this election … Bush will save us all … I can go on like this forever Tim, coz the RNC hardwired this stuff into my brain and I repeat it in a loop, Tim.
RUSSERT: I do not have a follow up question. Thank you for the honest talk.

Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Oct 31 2004 18:22 utc | 4

I found the transcript online:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6362470/

MR. GIULIANI: Well, I mean, the fact is the president has shown much stronger leadership with regard to terrorism than John Kerry. I mean, John Kerry has changed his position on the war maybe 12, 14 times. He’s changed his position on terrorism numerous times. He’s voted against–I mean, I find this absolutely mind-boggling for a man who wants to be commander in chief in time of war–he voted against the Persian Gulf War. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, John Kerry voted against it. It didn’t pass his global test. It even passed Syria’s global test but not his.
So these are very, very important issues. This is the end of the campaign. The country has got to select the man they think is better able to handle a wartime situation. And John Kerry has found himself always on the side of being anti-war, anti-military–a whole career in the United States Senate that he ignores in which he’s voted against military funding. During the Ronald Reagan era, he was against our military. When he came back from Vietnam, he was against our military. He was against the Persian Gulf War. He consistently attacks our military now. He does it in the guise of attacking the leadership, but, in fact, he’s attacking the military, the same way he did after Vietnam. [sic!]
MR. RUSSERT: He will say he voted for all major defense expenditures, even ones that Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney wanted to cut.
MR. GIULIANI: Oh, I was in the Reagan administration. I remember one of the strongest opponents of Ronald Reagan’s buildup of our military, which he had to do after President Carter [not true], was John Kerry. One of the biggest opponents of probably the thing that brought down the Soviet Union–as Gorbachev says, Ronald Reagan spent him into oblivion, spent the Soviet Union into oblivion. One of the biggest opponents of that was John Kerry, and I remember that as if it were yesterday.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn it to …

If you count it, it’s only after 17 sentences of spin when Russert does one meager attempt at interviewing when he suggests what a potential Kerry defense would be. This gives Giuliani a good base to spin it some more in 5 sentences by assuming the authority/eye-witness role.
I hope I do not have to remind anyone that a just court would give no weight to a witness with a obvious conflict of interest. But Russert is merely a silent aparatchik who reads from the script he was given.

Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Oct 31 2004 18:54 utc | 5

I have no idea who will win. The younger, first time voters are the unknown right now, and they are not polled. Actually, I’ve never known anyone who was polled, ever.
I think it’s a mistake to think that Kerry will come in to office, if he wins, and make wholesale changes. For one thing, it depends on who wins the Legislative seats. For another, I think he does want to try to unite a very factious nation, and because of this, he will not want to scare people who are already scared. Whether he can succeed in uniting the nation, however, is also unknown and seems unlikely at this time, unless some of the rhetoric cools down, and since hate sells and energizes the base, I don’t see that happening.
If Bush wins, I predict that we will continue to be extremely divided because it will be the second election which he will have gained under clouds of suspicion about the actions of his brother and his friends at Diebold.
In addition, Bush’s advisors have a stated radical agenda in foreign policy, economics, and in issues of separation of church and state. We’ve seen these in action already. These policies have already proven to be highly divisive.
If Bush wins, I would not be surprised and in fact would expect that we will see another attack on American soil. If Kerry wins, I don’t know…but unless some sort of diplomatic maneuvers are made vis a vis our Middle Eastern foreign policy. If no change, then I would also expect that there will be another attack on American soil.
I think we’ve been told this recently, as a matter of fact.
Since I cannot change what will happen, sometimes I think I should just become a mental hermit and find some consolation in some totally archaic author like Anatole France.

Posted by: fauxreal | Oct 31 2004 20:14 utc | 6

Josh Marshall has some very good coverage of the polls with quite good news.

Posted by: conchita | Oct 31 2004 21:07 utc | 7

Some importend ideas in this WaPo Outlook: When Did Voting Get So Intimidating?

On the eve of an election in a great nation trying to sell the idea of democracy to the rest of the world, it is a scandal that so many Americans are wondering whether judges and lawyers — not voters — will decide the outcome. It is a scandal that one side suspects the other of trying to depress turnout in the name of fighting fraud. It is a scandal that all this talk of a disputed election may discourage some voters from going to the polls. It is a scandal that we have taken a basic act of citizenship and turned it into a complicated, litigated, chad-infested, technologically convoluted and anxiety-ridden act.
…
getting our electoral system right is imperative. We ask our men and women in uniform to die to bring free and fair elections to other countries. Surely we can work harder to make our way of voting a model and not risk turning it into a laughingstock.

And to me, writing from Europe, it is already a laughingstock. An Electoral College by the way is undemocratic in its concept.
There are two principle ways to vote:
– if everybody is registrated with address and has a photo ID and if you have paper ballots (Germany and others) – you can make sure that there is not double voting and that everybody has a chance to vote. I´m not aware of any trouble ever in German voting (after 1945)
– if you don´t want registration and IDs everybody who votes gets a pink finger with some undeletable (for three days) ink.
The alleged super democracy of the United States is not even able to vote without 20,000 lawers interfearing. What “right” is left to talk about “democracy” in other countries?

Posted by: b | Oct 31 2004 22:18 utc | 8

Wooo hooo! This will be the first time ever that GPL-wielding, EFF-loving, FSF-supporting little ol’ me ever cheered for a intellectual property rights C&D! You go John Hall.

Posted by: DeAnander | Nov 1 2004 4:39 utc | 9

If the vote was fair and square Kerry would win with a landslide.
Say 60 %. (? From a mountain in Switzerland.)
All the polls are off. All overstimate a Bush win. Research has shown that many people prefer to vote for the announced, expected or potential winner, which is why, in part, polls exist, are manipulated, and published.
France, for example, has a law that prohibits any poll results being published one week before elections.
Pollsters, like the media, do the job that is expected of them.
Insiduously, and in many cases in good faith.
(From my knowledge, please correct…) Polls in the US are conducted by phone, and to fixed phones (cheap and easy..) as well as to registered voters. That is, to people with a home, a fixed address, a voter registration. Never to mobile phones, which young people have. Never to people not on an official list.
I know a respectable elderly Republican couple who lives in Detroit, Michigan – they have been polled 7 times in the last 10 years!
In the US, one third or more of people hang up when a pollster calls. In other countries, that can stretch to 80%. And that is only taking into account those who answer in the first place..that is, are home in the afternoon..
The ones who hang on, are diligent and obedient and have time to waste – are the elderly, the patient, the established, the obfuscated middle class…etc.
Running a good poll is very difficult and very expensive. It is not generally done. The people who pay for them want quick and cheap results. Pollsters comply, they have to eat too.

Posted by: Blackie | Nov 1 2004 21:27 utc | 10

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