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"But with only seven weeks until the election, the vector of Kerry's campaign is, if anything, entirely uphill. A new TIME survey of 857 likely voters reveals that President Bush has retained the solid 11-point lead he earned during the New York City convention earlier this month. Kerry's support has eroded across almost every demographic group but most notably among women. In a departure from recent patterns, among registered voters, women now favor Bush over Kerry by 45% to 44%, and men are breaking for the President by a lopsided 56% to 34%.
And for Kerry, that's not the worst of it. The landscape of the race has changed, and the new ground tends to favor Republicans. Terrorism has replaced the economy as the most important issue in the race, and on those topics and nearly every other issue, voters give higher marks to Bush than to Kerry—sometimes by dramatic 20-point margins.
Bush's job-approval rating has returned to a safe cruising altitude of 56%, close to where Bill Clinton stood at this point in 1996, while Kerry's unfavorable ratings have mushroomed from 29% a month ago to 42% today. That's dangerous territory for any politician, but if Kerry is worried about those numbers, he tried hard not to show it. Asked about Bush's recent surge, Kerry said, "I don't know what you are talking about in terms of the Bush bounce."
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I don't know at what point we draw the line between rediculously optimistic and DENIAL.
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"But with only seven weeks until the election, the vector of Kerry's campaign is, if anything, entirely uphill. A new TIME survey of 857 likely voters reveals that President Bush has retained the solid 11-point lead he earned during the New York City convention earlier this month. Kerry's support has eroded across almost every demographic group but most notably among women. In a departure from recent patterns, among registered voters, women now favor Bush over Kerry by 45% to 44%, and men are breaking for the President by a lopsided 56% to 34%.
And for Kerry, that's not the worst of it. The landscape of the race has changed, and the new ground tends to favor Republicans. Terrorism has replaced the economy as the most important issue in the race, and on those topics and nearly every other issue, voters give higher marks to Bush than to Kerry—sometimes by dramatic 20-point margins.
Bush's job-approval rating has returned to a safe cruising altitude of 56%, close to where Bill Clinton stood at this point in 1996, while Kerry's unfavorable ratings have mushroomed from 29% a month ago to 42% today. That's dangerous territory for any politician, but if Kerry is worried about those numbers, he tried hard not to show it. Asked about Bush's recent surge, Kerry said, "I don't know what you are talking about in terms of the Bush bounce."
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I don't know at what point we draw the line between rediculously optimistic and DENIAL.