one very good stat I heard

[ButterflyBlood]

No incumbent president since 1948 has ever trailed their eventual opponent in ANY Gallup poll of the calender year of their reelection and won. Kerry has beat Bush in several Gallup polls, and while they all had lows points to their presidencies, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, LBJ and Eisenhower all led their opponents in every Gallup poll of the year of their reelection.

[oasis]

1. Kerry will bend Pretzel Boy like a .......pretzel.

[Renew Deal]

2. Here is another one.

No president that has won the electoral college but lost the popular vote has ever been reelected.

[AP]

3. A note about '72 (which I think is the model for Bush's strategy this yr.)

1972

Uncertainty regarding the Democratic nominee was one reason Gallup did not match incumbent Richard Nixon against eventual challenger George McGovern until late April 1972. Nixon led McGovern by 11 points in that poll -- the lowest gap measured that year -- before defeating McGovern by a 61% to 38% margin in the November election.

http://www.gallup.com/content/default.asp?ci=10531

It's not clear whether a clear early favorite would have out-polled despised Nixon early, and whether McGovern trailled in April because of a late start. But, notice, McGovern only went down late in the game against a Republican whom most people didn't like and was running an unpopular war, which he ultimately used to pull the rug out from underneath the feat of the Democrats' campaign strategy.

[rfranklin]

4. As they say on Wall Street...

Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.

As Knute Rockne said, "You gotta fight, fight, fight!"