ABC News' The Note: First Source for Political News

ByABC News
September 13, 2004, 12:10 PM

W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 13, 2004&#151;<br> -- NOTED NOW

TODAY'S SCHEDULE (all times ET)

FUTURES CALENDAR

Morning Show Wrap

Evening Newscasts Wrap

50 days until Election Day17 days until the first proposed presidential debate

NEWS SUMMARY

With John Kerry trying a bit of offense on assault weapons and North Korea; major Iraq chaos; some book background noise; and a pair National Guard showdowns, we bring you

.A simple Monday Note quiz (intended for ages 16 to 76) to re-set the presidential race for one and all:

1. History will record August through early September was the period in which:

A. Sen. Kerry effectively lost the White House.

or

B. Sen. Kerry effectively reorganized his campaign and found his message, learning many lessons from the nature and ferocity of the attacks on him in July/August.

2. The documents on which CBS based its report last week raising new questions about the special treatment President Bush received as a member of the Texas National Guard are:

A. forgeries, the exposure of which will create a great media whodunit that will distract the press away from the real issues in the election, get the right riled up against the dominant media, and give additional firepower to the Bartlett-led allegations of "desperate attacks" on the President.

or

B. the real deal that will put unprecedented pressure on the president to explain his time in the National Guard and his "young and irresponsible" years, providing a wedge into the "trust," "privilege," and "character" issues Democratic strategists dream about, and forcing the White House to engage the facts on a level beyond (the comic mantra) "the president served honorably and was honorably discharged."

3. The newspaper stories in which various Kerry advisers trash each other on background and talk about what the candidate's message "should" be exposing the rifts between the Boston-consultants-staffer-family camps and leaving Karl Rove scratching his chin wondering why less than two months before election day his opponent doesn't know what his message is:

A. will continue all fall, giving the press its much desired "if he can't run a presidential campaign, how can he run the country?" storyline.

or

B. saw their last gasp in Saturday's New York Times , Sunday's Los Angeles Times, and the Bob Shrum profile by Ken Auletta in the New Yorker (LINK) after which the Senator demanded that such nonsense stop forever.

4. As he struggles to find a message, Sen. Kerry will

A. enter the debates with the Bob Dole '96 problem of how to go negative and catch up without looking, well, negative.

or

B. soon figure out how George W. Bush can simultaneously (in the same speech!! even in the same paragraph!!) go positive and negative and not face a series of stories about the inevitable "choice" between the two.

5. No matter what the allegation or negative development, until and unless George Bush loses his lead in the polls, his campaign will:

A. answer every attack or fact from any source with a version of "Sen. Kerry is making another desperate charge at the end of the campaign because he is behind in the polls. Once again, Americans are tired of the same old political flip flopping from a desperate man who doesn't know what he believes," and never themselves answer the substance of the charges.

or

B. face increased scrutiny of Bush's record on Iraq and the economy in ways that (even) Sen. Kerry will be able to take advantage of.

6. Polls between now and the first debate will be read by the Gang of 500 to show:

A. President Bush is ahead by enough that he can't lose.

or

B. Sen. Kerry has cut down the president's post-convention bounce lead enough to be in easy striking distance of winning.

7. The seemingly late-starting Bush-supporting 527 efforts, combined with groups such as the NRA, and with Blaise Hazelwood's genius will:

A. swamp the efforts of Big Labor and the Democratic 527s on election day.

or

B. turn out to be no match for the anti-Bush energy that defines Blue America.

8. The upcoming Springsteen-led concerts against the President announced with much fanfare will:

A. be as important historically as the nuclear freeze concert in which Jackson Browne recorded his classic version of "Stay."

or

B. be historic, galvanizing events that are part of a Kerry comeback story.

9. In the debate-about-debates, James Addison Baker 3d will:

A. clean Vernon Jordan's unsuspecting clock.

or

B. suffer his first major political defeat in years.

10. John Kerry's much ballyhooed, legendary capacity to turn it on at the end of a campaign will:

A. prove to be only applicable to beating someone with the political, uhm, skills of Howard Dean, or when running as a Democrat in Massachusetts.

or

B. amaze a nation in the next 50 days.

If you answered "A" more than seven times, well . . .

The first full week after Labor Day offers a trifecta of political events: box office-energy books (Kitty Kelley, Seymour Hersh); policy pronouncements (a "new" "crime prevention plan" from Kerry and Edwards on the day the assault weapons ban expires); and the intriguing political play of Kerry and Bush speaking to the same group that so happens to represent the National Guard.

We'll take the second part first, Jack.

Ten years after President Bill Clinton signed it into law, the assault weapons ban expires today without even a whimper.

Kerry and Edwards will try to make the most of that when Kerry is endorsed by the 236,000-member National Association of Police Organizations and accuses Bush of "caving to the gun lobby" and making "it easier for criminals and terrorists to obtain these deadly weapons against the advice of our nation's police officers."

Kerry also gets the nod from the National Coalition of Public Safety Officers, and will also be joined on the trail by Sarah Brady, wife of former Reagan press secretary and gun violence victim Jim Brady, New York Rep. Carolyn McCarthy and Washington, DC Mayor Anthony Williams.

As for those books, we will of course see Kitty Kelley spout her thinly sourced innuendo about current and former Presidents Bush on a certain morning show (three days in a row?!). And just as her book hits stores Seymour Hersh packages much of the reporting he debuted in the New Yorker for "Chain of Command," in which he argues that the Iraq war distracted from the war on terror and that responsibility for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib went very high up the chain of command.

On the candidates' calendars this week, as reporters continue to focus on the authenticity of documents that may of may not have described President Bush's National Guard status 35 years ago, Bush and Kerry both speak to the National Guard Association in Las Vegas Bush tomorrow, Kerry on Thursday.

In Washington, the Senate task force assigned with overhauling the country's intelligence setup meets for the first time this week. And on Tuesday Rep. Porter Goss begins his hearings that are expected to make him the new Director of Central Intelligence.

And do not forget: Red Sox-Yankees in the Bronx this weekend, AL East pennant on the line.

Kerry receives the NAPO endorsement in Washington today at 9:30 am ET and spends the day without public events in Washington until flying to Milwaukee tonight.

President Bush spends the day talking about health care in Michigan. The message, in spokesman Scott Stanzel's words: Bush has a plan to "strengthen" health care while Kerry favors "putting government in charge and shifting the costs to taxpayers." Bush visits the Democratic-leaning Muskegon first (11:00 am ET) before traveling to Republican-leaning Holland (1:20 pm ET), and battleground Battle Creek (4:35 pm ET).

(Ralph Nader isn't too far away, by the way. He speaks at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor at 1:00 pm ET and at Michigan State University in East Lansing at 7:00 pm ET.)

Vice President Cheney and Mrs. Cheney begin the day in Iowa with an 11:30 am ET town hall meeting in Ottumwa and finish with a 4:00 pm rally in Beaver, WV.

Senator John Edwards hosts a town hall meeting in Santa Fe, NM then flies to Tucson, AZ and Reno, NV for rallies. He overnights in Portland, OR.

In Washington, the Senate begins voting on amendments to the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill at 5:30 pm ET, when Sen. Chuck Schumer's amendment that would provide $100 million for tracking HAZMAT trucks is up for vote.

On Tuesday, Kerry begins his day in Milwaukee before stopping in Toledo, and then on to Michigan. Vanessa Kerry talks health care in Mason City, IA. President Bush heads to Colorado, then on to Las Vegas for his speech before the Conference of the National Guard Association of the United States. First Lady Laura Bush hits the stump in Ohio. Vice President Cheney makes stops in Arkansas and West Virginia. Edwards spends Tuesday talking to voters at community colleges before hitting a reception and then flying to West Virginia.

Also on Tuesday, nine states and the District of Columbia will hold primaries. Washington's Democratic gubernatorial primary between Attorney General Christine Gregoire and King County Executive Ron Sims is the highest profile race in the mix. The other states holding primaries are: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

On Wednesday, Sen. Kerry addresses the Detroit Economic Club before heading to Madison, WI, and on to Washington, DC, where he speaks to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The president is back in Washington, DC on Wednesday, to speak at the Hispanic Heritage Month concert and reception at the White House. Sen. Edwards begins his Wednesday in West Virginia before heading to Ohio.

Kerry spends Thursday in Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado. President Bush heads to Minnesota, where he speaks at a rally in St. Cloud, participates in a "Focus on Health with President Bush" event in Blaine, and speaks at a Minnesota Victory 2004 rally in Rochester.

On Friday, Sen. Kerry heads from Colorado to Minnesota. The president stops at events in Washington, DC, and Charlotte, NC, and Mrs. Bush talks about the economy in West Virginia on Friday, followed by stumping for Rep. Jim DeMint for Senate in South Carolina and attending a rally in Pennsylvania.

Sen. Kerry is in New Hampshire on Saturday, and the president spends the day in Kennebunkport, ME.

ABC News Vote 2004: Bush v. Kerry:

"With barely two months before the presidential election of 2004, the campaigns of Republican President Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry are haunted by past campaigns involving the president's father, George Bush," write Bill Adair and Wes Allison of the St. Petersburg Times. LINK

"But while the current Bush camp is obsessed with avoiding the elder's mistakes, addressing them almost point by point, the Kerry campaign seems oblivious to some of the biggest lessons of Dukakis."

In Newsweek, Howard Fineman and Mike Isikoff wade into the mud pit and try to figure out how we got here. LINK

The Washington Post 's Howard Kurtz looks at how covering the news and actions of the candidates 30 years ago, not to mention the tawdry, the press not only has made everything fair game, but gives short shrift to actual issues that affect voters. LINK

"If journalists devoted the same investigative energy to the candidates' efforts to bolster Medicare and Social Security or deal with the mess in Iraq as opposed to precisely what happened on the Bay Hap River in 1969 perhaps more people might find campaign coverage compelling."

The Wall Street Journal 's Jacob Schlesinger and Greg Hitt examine the war on character that's taken prominence in the campaign. LINK

Key graphs: "The character tilt to the campaign so far has helped Mr. Bush and could continue to give him an edge if it remains the dominant theme through the fall. Republicans have been more persistent with personal attacks against Mr. Kerry than Democrats have been against Mr. Bush, and polls show Mr. Kerry's negative ratings rising more sharply than Mr. Bush's. While Democrats vow to fight back, it is harder to change public perceptions of an incumbent president than a lesser-known challenger.

"Democrats also risk taking the focus off the economy, health care, and Iraq, where polls show voters still have serious concerns about Mr. Bush's record. A character debate 'is clearly much more effective for Bush because it takes him away from the issues,' says Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, which analyzes public opinion. 'Kerry has to talk about how bad conditions are.'"

"The danger for both Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush is that a nasty personality fight, while exciting core supporters, turns off undecided voter."