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From Dan Blather's journal (thanks so much for that link!): With various polls now confirming that Kerry is losing momentum and Bush gaining some, the Republican leadership as well as the rank-and-file is smiling, winking and slapping high-fives.

Here's the real reason they're high-fiving: After 2 weeks of Kerry fuming and begging Bush to "get back to the issues" they are going to give him exactly what he asked for: A solid week of Republicans talking about every issue in the campaign but Vietnam, and all of it viewed through the "Bush leads, Kerry flops" paradigm. He should have been careful what he wished for.

And what happens right after the convention? Stolen Honor starts making headlines. Heh-heh!

Among Democrats, high and low, there is considerable grumbling about how and why all this was, in the words of one Kerry consultant, “allowed to get this far”.

I'll answer that: Because you folks hate Bush so much and are so bereft of real core patriotism that you let a traitor become your nominee. The Vietnam stuff should have been checked, but just knowing the guy was Dukakis' Lt. Gov, that he was Mr. Nuclear Freeze and that he voted to cut intelligence and every weapon system in sight...any one of those should have been a red flag in a war election, but you didn't care. Now we may end up with Benedict Arnold in the White House. Tasty pick, boneheads.

The following are typical of comments from Democrats today: “There’s Bush out there again today (in West Virginia) on the attack. Where are Kerry’s attacks?”

Surely they jest.

Our best hope now is that Kerry does well, very well, in the debates.

And I hope I get to replace Brett Favre at Quarterback this year. Good luck on that.

“Kerry and his staff significantly underestimated the “Swift Boat” negative campaign assault. Then they fumbled the response. It was too slow and not very effective even after it got started.”

Slow, because he's been getting away with it for 35 years and it took him a bit to realize that people outside Massachusetts care if you're a back-stabbing Commie sympathizer. Ineffective because he's lying and the Swifties are telling the truth, with the Congressional record backing them up half the time. He and his team could be executing every tactic perfectly, and it will not work. No "it's all about sex" dodges this time, boys and girls.

“no need to panic, it’s still early”

Yeah it is, baby! Kerry gets to twist in the wind for about 60 more days-- Which is around 2,370 days less than James Galanti spent in the Hanoi Hilton. Suck it up, Hanoi John!

This rumor has swirled around a bit from time to time throughout the year, the chatter being that Mr. Bush would prefer to run with Sen. John McCain – or maybe Rudy Giuliani – and will sooner or later find a way to do it.

McCain? Sure, and Hillary wants to run with Newt Gingrich in '08. As for Giuliani, great guy and the Prez likes him, but not only does Bush like Cheney, not only is Cheney a great VP, but dumping him would be the only way to hand momentum back to Kerry. Oh, and Karl Rove would slit his wrists.

“Even which is to say no bounce… and possibly a slight minus, like minus one.”

If this happens (and it won't) it will be due to having too many RINOs on the platform. But the lack of a Dem convention bounce was about Kerry and Edwards sucking, and I think Cheney and Bush will impress yet again, leading to a bounce of about 4-6 points.