The Binary Circumstance

In my previous post, I noted that Eleanor Clift in Newsweek thinks the presidential race is breaking in favor of Kerry. A poll by Newsweek does not support her.

After months of the tightest presidential election contest in recent memory, a new NEWSWEEK poll suggests momentum may be moving toward President George W. Bush. As the bitter campaign enters its final days, against the eerie backdrop of a surprise appearance by Osama Bin Laden, Bush’s lead is still within the poll’s margin of error, but larger than last week. If the election were held today, 50 percent of likely voters would cast ballots for Bush and 44 percent for the Democrat, Sen. John Kerry. (Ralph Nader would receive 1 percent.) That compares to a Bush lead last week among likely voters of 48 percent to Kerry’s 46 percent.

Maybe Newsweek just likes to play to both sides of the contest to keep up their market share.

They do note, however, that if lots of new and younger voters turn out (and many expect that they will), it will probably favor Kerry.

That doesn’t mean the Bush campaign can start putting the bubbly on ice. Pollsters note that, historically, in races with an incumbent candidate, undecideds who only make their choice at the last minute break two-to-one in favor of the challenger. The Bush campaign believes that the war on terrorism—and voters’ greater trust in Bush to prosecute it—will mean that more of those late-breaking undecideds will fall its way. There’s no way to know until Tuesday.

And there is a whole deck of other wild cards. Most observers expect a larger-than-usual turnout, given the passions swirling around this election. If first-time voters turn out in huge numbers, or if young voters actually come out and vote this time, then all the polls (which assume both of those groups will only turn out in their usual low numbers) will be wrong. First-time voters support Kerry 47 to 44 percent over Bush and voters under 30 support Kerry 52 to 38 percent for Bush. (Note that the margin of error for first time voters is plus or minus 11 and for under-30’s is plus or minus 10.)

I guess we’ll just have to wait until Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Or if the Newsweek poll is correct, we’ll have to wait much longer than that.

Whoever wins in the end, Americans don’t expect it to be pretty. A 59-percent majority of registered voters say they expect major problems or disputes on Election Day. Only 34 percent of voters think the election will go smoothly. And 54 percent of voters believe that the vote will be so close that there will not be a clear winner on Tuesday night “and the courts will determine the winner.??? (Forty percent think that’s unlikely.) We’ll know soon enough—or not.

Eleanor Clift writes in Newsweek of signs that the election might go in Kerry’s favor in the final days.

We’ve heard the reasons before: more bad news about Iraq, the huge number of new voters who have registered for this election and signs that the Bush campaign is getting desperate.

More importantly, she reminds us that Bush has taken fantasy to a new level. He’s not really a president, he just plays one on TV. He sees victories where there are none and his campaign has now resorted to doctoring photographs to create scenes and events that never really happened.

The story that broke late Thursday about the Bush campaign using a doctored photo in an ad should help drive home Kerry’s message in the final days. The image used is reminiscent of Bush’s parading on an aircraft carrier flight deck to declare major combat operations over in Iraq. Here he stands as the commander in chief before cheering troops, except on close examination, the same faces are repeated over and over in the crowd. The ad uses troops as props and manipulates the scene to create a Hollywood computer-generated picture of a war president. Kerry spokesman Joe Lockhart issued a statement demanding that the Bush campaign pull the ad, saying, “Now we know why this ad is named, ‘Whatever it takes’.???

The White House has spent four years creating a fantasy world around Bush. Win or lose on Tuesday, the mistakes Bush has made in Iraq have caught up with him.

Troops as props. I think that really sums up not only the picture but the war in Iraq as well.

But it’s not just troops as props, it’s all of America. For him or against him, we’re all props in his fantasy that he is delivering God’s message on earth.

I am not as confident as Clift that a majority of Americans have outgrown the Bush fantasy yet.

Osama bin Laden who should have been captured a long time ago if our government really had any interest in doing it, has created a new video tape. As if we haven’t been bombarded with enough political commercials over the past few months.

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, in a videotape broadcast Friday on Al-Jazeera television, claims full responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States and warns Americans that “your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al-Qaida. Your security is in your own hands.???

From this report, it appears that bin Laden wants us to believe that we will be safe if we just leave him and his Muslim followers alone.

But how can anybody be safe when neither bin Laden or his follows can see the obvious contradiction in his message?

In the tape, bin Laden — wearing traditional white robes, a turban and a tan cloak — reads from papers at a lectern against a plain brown background. Speaking quietly in an even voice, he tells the American people that he ordered the Sept. 11 attacks because “we are a free people??? who wanted to “regain the freedom??? of their nation.

“Do not play with our security, and spontaneously you will secure yourself,??? he says, according to a translation by NBC News.

In case you didn’t catch it, let me run it by you again. He says he ordered the Sept. 11 attacks because “we are a free people.”
People who can be ordered to kill themselves and others are not free people. Free people don’t have to follow orders. Such people are called slaves.

If you don’t get enough statisfying sock sorting on laundry day, you can play this little game.

Use the cursor to pull one sock to the side and then find the match in the remaining bundle and drag it to its match. When two matching socks touch, they fold up into a ball and fall to the bottom of the screen. Of course, the more you match, the easier it gets.

It’s very relaxing.