What the election comes down to (found at Zogby)

[wildflower]

Note these excerpts from this article ("Parsing the Polls" by Charlie Cook, at Zogby):

<<Here's another way to describe the situation: If the campaign spotlight ends up shining on Bush, Bush loses. If it focuses on Kerry, Kerry loses.>>

<<If the economy and the situation in Iraq are the focus of the debate in the coming weeks, this race will still be a nail-biter, and Kerry will probably have the advantage.
If, instead, the focus is on Kerry, terrorism, or leadership, Bush will likely go on to clinch the second term that escaped his father.>>

http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=9388

[lancdem]

1. Yes, and right now it's the latter

It's been that way for at least a month, and I see no evidence it's changing.

[wildflower]

2. This makes me think about past elections...

Sorry to reply to my own post but this got me thinking about all the past elections...

(1) Was there more of a spotlight on Gore than on * in 2000?

(2) Was there more of a spotlight on Dole than on Clinton in 1996?

And so on.

(Of course (1) is more complicated than that, since Gore actually won!)

Presumably he's equating "spotlight" to a spotlight on the candidate's weakness(es).

-wildflower

[mahenphx]

6. Gore had to keep poking his head out of the

shadow of Clinton in the spotlight..he rarely got one of his own cause he won't run on Clinton's record. He hid from it.

[hansolsen]

3. Kerry could keep the spotlight on Iraq by coming out with bold new plans

for what the hell to do in Iraq. Kerry can command the national media aganda by telling the nation what he will do differently in Iraq.

I have posted many ideas on this I will not repeat here, but I will repeat this: Kerry better have something new to say on Iraq by the time of the debates or he will get creamed.

[Leilani]

4. Maybe with the addition of McCurry & Lockhart

the Kerry Campaign will get their message out more effectively.

[mahenphx]

5. Our problem is how to control sound bites...

We have very few liberal media and when they finally get a story that should grow legs they let it fade out; unlike the SBVT debacle which with the first falsehood should have gone back under the rock it came from. Now they're going to let the TANG story linger on forgery claims instead of * continuing to falsify his credentials for years. Or they'll let Kitty and her book become a yawn gossip yarn. Jeb in Florida with his bimbo putting Nader on the ballot should be kept out there. When 6o minutes 'tried' to do an exposure piece what happened? Huge markets had the program pre-empted or re-scheduled to the late night zombies hour. Where were our liberal media there? It got about as much attention as my dog gives Alpo commercials! Matthews is good if he thinks he can get ratings out of a thread. Look at him with Clinton /Lewinski but he's got to have some strong spokesmen for Kerry to keep the thread alive. So now what... unfortunately not all likely voters are blogaholics or forum adventurers and that's where any real heat is coming from.