Poll: Bush Ratings [Still sky-high] and Preview of Upcoming Elections

Don't misread me as I think Cheney is GREAT. In fact, I had hoped GHWB was going to nominate either Cheney or Rumsfeld way back when. Also, believe it or not, I won a $5 bet that Dan Quayle actually would be the nominee.

However, it makes a lot more sense for Condi to be elected VP rather than appointed. Besides, section9 is right that Bush-Rice would poll bigger numbers than Bush-Cheney.

Nelson (Ben) is from Nebraska and a 'Sheep-Dipped Democrat'. He will never be a Republican and Zell is probably the same. Probably some deep cultural-generational-family thing.

Many people, when asked their opinion on a subject, will be happy to oblige, even if it is the very first time they have heard about it, much less thought about it.

Case in point: stem-cell research. Almost every one polled had an opinion but
not 10% of them had the faintest idea what a stem cell is, or why it should matter.

Well lasereye, polls always slant democrat usually 5 percent or so

I seriously doubt this is true. It's probably happened in certain situations, but always? What's your source for that? When it's been true, it's because the poll overestimated Democratic turnout. However, this doesn't appear to be a reliable assumption anymore.

Remember the 1998 election in the middle of Clinton's scandal the Democrats gained seats in the mid-term election. It was the first time since 1962 the party with the White House gained seats in a non presidential election year election and I think only the first or second time this century that the party in the White House gained seats after having the White House for six years. Why did that happen? A huge black turnout, boosted by Clinton's direct appeal to them and his appearance at a black church on election eve.

Why did the expected margin of victory for Bush fail to materialize in 2000? Partly because alot of Christian conservatives that they were counting on failed to show up. Also, the race card the Dems played with their commercials blaming Bush for the dragging death in Texas caused quite a few blacks and some Hispanics in Texas who had voted for Bush for Governor to switch to Gore, and boosting black turnout everywhere. Did you know black turnout in 2000 exceeded white turnout?

The DNC with their labor allies have put a huge amount of resources into get out the vote efforts in recent years and they always seem to find a way to play the race card at the last minute, along with some other kind of last minute BS that seems to materialize, like the drunk driving revelation. Expect more of the same this time around. I have no idea how what kind of campaign Torricelli is currently running, but if by October they're still neck and neck, expect some kind of racial allegation to emerge against Forrester, followed by a huge black turnout and a Torricelli victory.

Also, unless the stock market puts on a huge rally between now and election day, expect Dems to create fear amongst people about that. I know the polls show people don't currently blame Republicans, but that doesn't account for the effect of individual campaigns using this tactic in their TV and radio commercials, most of which haven't started yet. Are GOP candidates going to blame their Democratic opponents for the stock market? Of course not.

You are right in much of this analysis. However, don't forget that SOME of the same points you raised could have been made in 1994 against the chances of a GOP victory, and yet that didn't matter.

That said, the House has made NO effort at a "national" campaign a la "Contract with America," nor at this time is there a coalescing set of issues that would make such a program possible. At the same time, either they have distanced themselves from Bush, or he from them, but his popularity isn't necessarily going to help them. These races will indeed be local. Still, I see no evidence WHATSOEVER for a "groundswell" for Democratic candidates this fall.

lasereye there are in fact more registered dems then registered r's in the country by about 2.5 percent its just a fact. That gap has closed a little since election 2000 as many in swing states are registering R such as jewish voters because of Bush's support for Isreal 56 percent of jews under 30 actually voted for Bush so demographic is changing people like Harvey Weinstein have come out and endorsed George Pataki and other rinos hey its a start. The stuff on Bush never worked with them linking him to blank lynchings what did work in florida with black turnout was jeb bush's refusal to inact some goofy pro minority programs like affirmitive action and blacks wanted to take it out on George when campaigns get nasty it usually means one side is trailing Gore despite all his negative stuff on Bush never led other then for the 3 or 4 week time period after his convention which was to be expected. The thing that lost george the popular vote and probably the 320 electorial votes he was projected to win with was the drunk driving charge indys broke 2-1 for gore on election day in many swing states and DUI probably cost George a million votes and a comfortable win. The fact is for any republican to win the presidency he needs the reagan dems to come home to him how else to explain george bush the father landslide in a state like PA which at the time had two dem senators well spector is close to a dem, a dem governor, a dem in every major city as mayor, and state legislature controlled by dems. The Reagan democrats came over to Bush, now 2000 was interesting the Reagan dems had come home to george but in some states like michigan and pa they broke away and towards gore at the election because gore created enough uncertainty with the DUI to brake just enough off to win the popular vote and make his ludricous claim that he really won.