Despite round-the-clock coverage of Kerry smear, GOP losing ground

[ProSense]

Looking for a Lifeboat

A new NEWSWEEK poll shows that the GOP has lost more ground. Will rallying the base stem a Democratic tide?

Web Exclusive
By Marcus Mabry
Newsweek
Updated: 51 minutes ago

Nov. 4, 2006 - As President George W. Bush jets across Red State America this weekend, Republican candidates are falling further behind Democratic rivals, according to the new NEWSWEEK poll. While the GOP has lagged behind Democrats throughout the campaign season, the trend in the past month—when NEWSWEEK conducted four polls in five weeks—had suggested the Republicans were building momentum in the homestretch.

No more. The new poll finds support for Republicans (and for President Bush) receding. For example, 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win enough seats to take control of one or both houses of Congress in the midterm elections on Tuesday. Those results are close to early October levels, while less than a third of Americans (32 percent) want Republicans to retain control. If the elections were held today, 54 percent of likely voters say they would support the Democratic candidate in their district versus 38 percent who would vote for the Republican-a 16-point edge for the Democrats.

Despite round-the-clock coverage of John Kerry’s Iraq gaffe this week and non-stop rallies in which the President paints Democrats as weak-on-terror tax lovers, the political momentum has returned to the Democrats. Maybe that’s because nearly a third of registered voters (32 percent) now say Iraq is the most important issue in deciding their vote. The economy comes in second at 19 percent. And just 12 percent say terrorism, the Republican trump card in the last three elections, is their most important issue. In fact, as millions of Americans fill in their employers’ health-care selection forms for next year, terrorism is statistically tied with health care at 11 percent.

Meanwhile, the President’s approval has fallen back to 35 percent, after a slow but steady rise from 33 percent at the beginning of October to 37 percent in the NEWSWEEK poll last week.

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[texpatriot2004]

1. YES! nm

[DURHAM D]

2. It is wac-a-mole time at the WH.

They can not control the press any longer - too many issues for them to give a full-throated defense/spin. They are poppin' up here and there but can't manage the message.

Too bad.

[OneTwentyoNine]

3. Bawhahahhahah.....Keep this bumped up!!!! n/t

[wisteria]

4. Kerry will prevail through all of this. Other Dem's will have to

"get" it or move on.

[Miss Chybil]

5. Maybe, "smear" should be in quotes?

Somehow, your headline strikes me as saying Kerry intentionally smeared someone and nobody cares. On a lighter note.. this is very good news.

[MH1]

6. Dunno, I read it as a smear of Kerry. n/t

[Joe Chi Minh]

7. It's like the Clinton persecution. Every day, CNN piled on the

vilification of Big Dog, more or less trying to assure everyone that the public were horrified by his private life and wanted him out of office.

Problem was, people seemed to get a kick out of returning home from work and watching the perjured talking heads continually expressing their puzzlement that the polls were indicating that the public thought that they, the talking heads, were talking through their backsides! Great fun! The longer they continued to peddle their lying propaganda, the funnier their nightly discomfiture became.

[ProSense]

8. How a wingnut distortion exposed absurdity in the media and the mentality to pile on

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2580804&mesg_id=2580804