Bush quit using rhetoric? There's no way! That's all he has ever done so I would think that it is near impossible to stop using it now.

I would rather die, rot and go to hell than give Bush four more years. I own a small business of my own, and I have seen sales drop to nothing over the last two years.

Bush's economic plan? Yeah, I know, screw people like me. THAT is what Bush's plan is.

You should of found a better Democrat to run. We had no choice for our Republican so you only have yourself to blame for picking Kerry.

Collin Powell 2008!!!

I have seen sales drop to nothing over the last two years.

I love France T-Shirts not selling that well?

Right Coaster,
I'd say we found a pretty good one. For someone to give a wartime president such a hard run for his money is a pretty damn good position to be in.

The economy is hard to sell because people know they are much worse off. I'm sure that in states where employment is bad Bush's immediate jump to No Child Left Behind when confronted with the jobs issue didn't sell. We don't know what the "Jobs of the future" are so how the hell are you supposed to train for them. There are thousands of people out there that have a college degree in science, engineering and computer programing who are lucky to get a job at 7-11, so what are you going to tell people to study in community college?

RC,

odd-numbered days are for Hillary non-sequitirs; even-numbered days for france non-sequitirs. don't make us tell you again.

that was me

Here's a portion of answering of your thinking out loud:
As one of the Thinking Independent Grouping
we find the emphasis on more ___ Education spending repugnant and want Fed. Dept. of Ed long gone. He'll get the ex-Clinton's bunch in there to say more Ed. more Ed. more Ed and for labor whatever ...by the same idiots in univs., etc. who have screwed the country for thirty years... and for what? The manufacturers have fled and are fleeing!! Even Maytag is exiting its community and leaving people high and dry. (Get the illegals and green cards off any govt. benefits usage and we'll see what money we have to deal with( and no, kids of illegals are not to be considered citizens); we are very angry at Kerry's out of touch stress on affirmative action aka quotas and what he will have Feds. do even more (don't you have even a clue as to how that affects merit--on so many levels and ruining this country; Kerry is dependent on socialist univ and govt. employee unions (not good for the country as overpaid and too lush benefits have looted taxpayers public treasuryies everywhere already[ no way they will be able to get those pensions which they looted out of legislators for campaign bucks for thirty years); KERRY IS COMPLETELY OFF BASE ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ISSUE(and going against 80% of the American public) on the issue; he picked another out of touch rich trial attorney [Don't you get it? The ___legal system needs changing and too many attorneys and paper professionals have been hemorrhaging this society. Yuppies are people who never wanted to do any real work and live like princes and princesses. And,to us it is utter insanity to allow people to be attorneys via law school crap bending down to ___ law professor types, and without ten years of apprenticeship and UNDER 40 YEARS OF AGE [and been in the country for a dozen years as an adult immigrant]--because the field is so ___ serious in consequences to a society as so many Americans who have retained their common sense have seen!
Meanwhile, most of you are paper professionals or govt. employees ... partied in yuppy lifestyles and raised offspring for same... even buying buy foreign made cars...and goods for your ultra high priced real estate buying all your foreign made products for your homes at Home Depot,watching your millionaire sports teams use foreign made products, etc. etc. etc.

Where were you and your kids years ago to go to the streets over what was happening to this economy and whole regions of this country?
You people are even shocked. Shocked, I say and ready to call names if someone says how much this massive immigration has cost us and harmed us in so many ways. Let alone the damn stupidity of not getting cells, gangs, and all who don't belong here out of here and closing up having our borders.

(no, am not Independent of Nader's ultraliberal socialism type approach, for everyone but himself and his crowd)

Gosh if that's the mainstream American approach I'm so glad to be a brit.

In the UK there is a tug of war going on between Bush-type USA policies and those of the Europeans.

Blair had something good with `bridge between USA and Europe` until we found out it was a one-way ticket.

I'm so glad to have a fully laid-down culture however flawed that may be to tame people's xenophobia. We just need to stand together, us Europeans, and become one trading block to rival USA.

One thing, if Bush wins people are less likely to vote Blair as it would be seen to be not standing up for British interests against USA (ie Kennedy would be tougher and be a real critical friend).

If Kerry wins it will make Blair's life easier.

Although he'd never dare mention it Blair must be praying for a Kerry victory before 2005 Elections here.

ps I'm all for Kerry - the thought of supporting Bush makes me want to curl up and die.

However, I know Kerry will be more astute than Bush and fight harder for the USA so it's a dilemma.

If Kerry wins it will make Blair's life easier.

I gotta agree there.

I actually like Tony Blair. Can't for the life of me figure out how he got himself so tied up with Bush.

A Kerry victory would help Blair. And I believe the two could work together well. Neither man has a reason to want to diminish the other.

History suggests Luntz' recommendation will be ignored (Republicans love his analysis but often ignore his strategic recommendations). Instead Rove will read the surveys and decide that a massive last minute negative attack on Kerry is all that is needed to keep the undecideds at bay.

What gave Bush the boost? Could it have been the news of the elections Afghanistan? While they had no real meaning, the US media spin was about "freedom coming to Afghanistan", which fits in with Bush's primary foreign policy talking point.

would rather die, rot and go to hell than give Bush four more years. I own a small business of my own, and I have seen sales drop to nothing over the last two years.

Bush's economic plan? Yeah, I know, screw people like me. THAT is what Bush's plan is.

Posted by Talbert

Well maybe you should find out what wrong with your business instead of blaming someone else. Since I don't know yur location or what you sell I would suggest looking around and see if maybe you have new competition on the block or maybe the market you are in is full of the products you sell maybe diversifying what you sell will help or more advertising I don't know what you've done to make your business more competive and you may have done eveything right but to thik President bush is singling you out is a little paranoid. So good luck hope business picks up.

Note something else about Rasmussen: their poll says that the third debate, unlike everyone else, was a tie.

A Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 Likely Voters conducted the night following the debate found that 44% believe John Kerry "won" Wednesday night's debate while 41% disagree and think George Bush emerged victorious. The survey's margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% Level of Confidence.

This suggests the possibility that Rasmussen's massaging of the numbers to reach party ID reasonableness massages some truth away from the final result. in any case, better to wait until Sunday and Monday.

Don't worry about the polls. Kerry is in a great position to win. Just worry about getting out the vote!

Even if Kerry gets in he wont be able to do crap for at least 2 yrs. It will be political grid lock on the Hill.

Even if Kerry gets in he wont be able to do crap for at least 2 yrs. It will be political grid lock on the Hill.

Yep. We all know how the Republicans like that.

It will be interesting to see what kind of excuses they come up with to block Kerry's judicial appointments.

(Re-post from below thread):

MyDD has an analysis that suggests the Rasmussen poll's jump for Bush is nothing to worry about. He's tried to break down the 3-day moving averages into single day chunks. In comments, a reader corrected his breakdown. The results suggest that Bush's boost was actually 3 days ago, and the sudden jump appeared because Kerry had an unusually high number 4 days ago, and that number dropped out of the moving average. If he's right, Kerry actually did better yesterday than in the previous two days.

We'll know tomorrow if this is right, since the high Bush number will have dropped off.

He wasn't able to break down Zogby, but suggests the same happened there. Again, we'll know tomorrow.

Pushback. Payback. Has anyone read a book called "Sisters"? It's by Lynne Cheney. No? Some excerpts:

"The women who embraced in the wagon were Adam and Eve crossing a dark cathedral stage -- no, Eve and Eve, loving one another as they would not be able to once they ate of the fruit and knew themselves as they truly were.

The young woman was heavily powdered, but quite attractive, a curvesome creature, rounded at bosom and cheek. When she smiled, even her teeth seemed puffed and rounded, like tiny ivory pillows.

Let us go away together, away from the anger and imperatives of men. We shall find ourselves a secluded bower where they dare not venture." Emphasis supplied.

Sisters - A Book By Lynne Cheney, via Digby

Amazon's book description:

"(A) riveting tale of women in the American frontier. The novel of a strong and beautiful woman who broke all the rules of the American frontier...". Emphasis supplied.

Amazon

Has Bill O'Reilly eaten of the fruit?

Her teeth were puffed and rounded? Puffed and rounded teeth? Ewwwww!!

A used copy is on sale at Amazon for $500.00.

To Alex,
Why all the ranting? You've had a Repub ruling the White House, the Congress, and the majority of state governorships. If you're so unhappy with the current state of affairs regarding immigration and education spending and legal reform, whose fault is that?

Holy Crap! We have Editors?

"To Alex,
Why all the ranting?"
Because that's all he knows how to do. At least it was almost coherent this time.

Even if Kerry gets in he wont be able to do crap for at least 2 yrs. It will be political grid lock on the Hill.

That doesn't bother me. Kerry signalled again in the debate that he has a history of working across party lines. The quote by FDR was a nice touch. All along he's been going for the Independents and Republicans, the tour across America bears this out.

More important he strikes me as a guy who knows where the bodies are buried. Great move talking about fighting Tom Delay.

I'm a heck of a lot smarter than most of you and in several ways. What I stated was a a dose of reality and disgust for what most of you have done to this country with yuppy lifestyles and your offspring. People who don't visit here don't agree with your reality, just as much they don't agree with Bush and crowd.

I'm a heck of a lot smarter than most of you and in several ways. What I stated was a a dose of reality and disgust for what most of you have done to this country with yuppy lifestyles and your offspring. People who don't visit here don't agree with your reality just as much as they don't agree with Bush & crowd.

...what most of you have done to this country with yuppy lifestyles and your offspring.

You don't know anyone here.

What do you know about any of our lifestyles or our offspring.

I hope Kerry wins but the prospect of a Kerry presidency is also very depressing. The right will see to it that EVERY day is worse than the worst day Clinton ever had. There will always be nearly half the population ardently hoping Kerry proves to be an utter failure and willing to help see to it he becomes one. That half will believe every single negative report or rumor by the media, various smear machines and whisper campaigns. He will likely be hamstrung and stymied by a Congress still in the hands of a Republican majority. Deficits will limit progress in neglected policy areas. None of this is reason to want him to lose but I do think it will be a miserable 4 to 8 years.

Thanks Alex for that humility....

Well, Zogby is still at 48-44. Not good, not good.

Meanwhile, we can now objectively say that the news media is pro-Republican. I know, I know; all partisans claim that the media is against them. But consider, if Clinton were president and Bush were the challenger, what would the top stories of the day be? Right now, the Mary Cheney thing dominates coverage and the following stories are getting short shrift. You cannot imagine Clinton getting a free ride if any of these had been true during his presidency:

1) A major international poll shows that the President is loathed. Several allies have indicated support for the challenger in the presidential race.

2) The only safe zone in the country that the President occupied through force is no longer safe. Continued bombing is injuring/killing hundreds of civilians and only serving to piss off the international community more.

3) An entire unit of the army has mutinied, meanwhile articles are coming out daily about soldiers a) questioning the rationale for the war, and b) pointing out massive lack of support for the troops in terms of inadequate supplies and protection while in combat and inadequate support after maimed soldiers leave the service.

4) Every single economic indicator released in the past week has been negative, some starkly so.

5) The President was rated as the consensus loser in all three debates by polls, and made a major gaffe with clear video showing his error in the last debate.

6) Oil prices are rising, and demand is growing to within 1% of maximum supply.

7) Thousands may die as the results of a flu vaccine shortage, but the President blanes other countries.