'Bush Soars!' 'Republicans Are Ahead,' so went the news headlines and talking heads in post-Republican convention America. But don’t believe the hype. The race for the White House is much tighter than the public is being led to believe.

According to recent polls the Republican convention gave George W. Bush a big lift. As reported by a Time and Newsweek poll, conducted during the convention, the president is now ahead by 11 to 12 points.

At first glance these results seem plausible. After all, in the weeks leading up to the Republican convention Kerry had been subject to a well-orchestrated softening-up campaign initiated by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (the co-director of which Jerome Corsey, according to David Brock of Media Matters for America, posted racist comments on a right-wing web site) and fueled by Fox News, questioning his service in Vietnam. The barrage casting doubts on his character continued into the convention.

Why the character assassination? Because they can’t win on the issues. Brock quoted in Mother Jones, says the Republicans used the same tactic against Gore. 'The Republicans knew they couldn’t win on the issues in 2000, so they developed an explicit strategy to attack Gore’s character, and that ultimately seemed to have worked.

Brock should know. He’s an ex-right winger who was part of the Republican attack machine against Bill Clinton.

A closer look at the numbers suggests a much tighter contest. The poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports Tracking Poll (who provided the raw numbers for the Time and Newsweek survey) on Tuesday, September 11th has the race evenly split at 47.3% each. As of this writing, according to the same Rasmussem poll, the race is a statistical dead heat with 47.5% for Bush 46.8% for the Democratic team. The results don’t bode well for Bush. Assuming the Time/Newsweek figures were correct, Bush has suffered one of the sharpest post-convention bottoming out in recorded history.

writes:

…Mr. Bush has suffered an historic cratering in his poll numbers within 100 hours of the close of his party’s convention. They continue:

But perhaps the ballhooed post-convention lead enjoyed by Bush never existed at all. Pollster John Zogby says, 'I have Mr. Bush leading by 2 points in the simple head-to-head match up – 46% to 44%. Add in the other minor candidates and it becomes a 3 point advantage for the president … it simply is not an 11 point race. It just isn’t. So what’s the reason behind all the hype? Simply put: ideological shock and awe, a domestic counterpart to the propaganda war waged most recently against Iraq. The idea is threefold to create an aura of invincibility around the Bush campaign, to attack Kerry’s character and demoralize the opposition. If people feel Bush is way ahead, despite everything that’s done, why go out and vote?

But don’t believe the hype. The one-half million strong demonstration against the Republicans in New York – virtually ignored or minimized by the mass media – is being matched by local efforts throughout the country, especially in the battleground states, where local unions, churches, civil rights and immigrant rights groups are pounding the pavements, going door-to-door to bring the vote.

The truth today is not in the airways, but on the ground, where millions are gathering to defeat Bush. That’s where the real poll is being taken: that’s where it counts.



--Joe Sims is editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at joesims@politicalaffairs.net.



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