ABC News' The Note: First Source for Political News

ByABC News
August 12, 2004, 8:19 AM

W A S H I N G T O N, Aug. 11, 2004&#151;<br> -- NOTED NOW

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19 days until the Republican convention83 days until election day

NEWS SUMMARYToday, The Note gets all serious and macro.

It is our most fundamental job to regularly tell you three things:

1. where the presidential race stands

2. that where the race stands now is only a snapshot

3. that things can change

And/but the reality is as amazing as this seems this is now John Kerry's contest to lose.

Forget the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs (and Team Bush's inability so far to enunciate a second-term jobs/growth agenda or find a compelling Rubinesque spokesperson on the economy).

Forget the fact that that we still can't find a single American who voted for Al Gore in 2000 who is planning to vote for George Bush in 2004. (If you are that elusive figure, e-mail us and tell us who you are and why: politicalunit@abcnews.com.)

Forget the fact that California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey (sorry, Matthew) aren't in play and never were.

Forget the latest polling out of Ohio (and perhaps Florida .).

Forget the extraordinary anti-Bush energy that exists on the left and the "how-do-we-whip-our-folks-up?" dilemma that exists on the right.

Forget the various signs that the Democratic challenger is playing in battleground areas for the middle and the president seems geographically and issues-wise to be still shoring up the base.

Forget the persistence of the Democratic advantage on the congressional generic poll question.

Forget the current ad spending advantage the DNC/anti-Bush 527s have over BC04RNC while John Kerry pinches pennies.

But remember the poisonous job approval, re-elect, and wrong track numbers that hang around the president's neck to this day and then consider the very smart, mustest-of-read essay by Charlie Cook, in which the Zen Master surveys the troubling (and consistently so ) poll numbers of the incumbent and renders this spot on verdict: LINK

(Now is the time to subscribe to National Journal's outstanding Web site if you don't already, because you need to read the whole thing.)

"President Bush must have a change in the dynamics and the fundamentals of this race if he is to win a second term. The sluggishly recovering economy and renewed violence in Iraq don't seem likely to positively affect this race, but something needs to happen. It is extremely unlikely that President Bush will get much more than one-fourth of the undecided vote, and if that is the case, he will need to be walking into Election Day with a clear lead of perhaps three percentage points."

"This election is certainly not over, but for me, it will be a matter of watching for events or circumstances that will fundamentally change the existing equation one that for now favors a challenger over an incumbent."

Now, the last thing we want is for Rush Limbaugh to quote from The Note for the third straight day LINK

(OK, we lied, that is the SECOND-to-last thing we want; the LAST thing we want is for Rush to quote from us again AND non-smug Wonkette to quote Rush quoting us . LINK).

But this is the reality of the race right now, and it is best that everyone knows it. And, as we suggested, there is still plenty of time (and a convention and some debates and world events) for all this to change.

However, there are swirling developments that give one pause.

First off, the new Bush-Cheney TV ad "Solemn Promise" out this morning. LINK

The entire ad has the same setting: just a shot (from a side angle) of George W. and Laura Bush. George W. Bush is looking casual in a short-sleeved shirt and Laura Bush is in green. There are occasional close-ups of Bush's hand gestures and then a close-up of his face. Through the ad, Laura Bush looks onward as George W. Bush speaks and nods. They seem to be sitting on a couch and appear to be in a home office of sorts (There's a vague view of a desk in the background.).

The spoken words of the Commander-in-Chief:

"My most solemn duty is to lead our nation, to protect ourselves. I can't imagine the great agony of a mom or a dad having to make the decision about which child to pick up first on September the 11th. We cannot hesitate, we cannot yield, we must do everything in our power to bring an enemy to justice before they hurt us again."

We don't mean to diminish the power of 9/11 or the President's bond with many of the American people over it, but surely there will be for some a whiff of the desperate in using this thematic now, on the eve of the New York convention and when the Bush-Cheney second term agenda is supposed to be being fleshed out.

We know, we know, we know that the pledge to keep us safer is part of that second term agenda, but what else?

We think that issue of who will keep America safer is a perfectly legit one for both sides to argue, and maybe battleground state voters will like to hear about it in a dollop of thirty-second orchestral emotion, but we think it is possible that this will be seen (at least by The Filter) as over the top.

There's also the president's (self-consciously true?) stump line that the best reason to re-elect him is four more years of Laura Bush as First Lady. We think the verbal irony of that speaks for itself.

And there is also the now daily using of Drudge (and Fox and the New York Post ) to try to juice the news cycle with various blasts-from-the-past-into-the-present about John and Teresa Heinz Kerry that we find so transparently desperate that it makes us feel more indignity than that which wells up when John McCain and John Weaver share a booth at Clyde's and reminisce about 2000.

That ALMOST speaks for itself. More on that to come.

Trying to push this boulder up a hill, President Bush, with Sen. John McCain, participates in an "Ask President Bush" event at 3:50 pm ET in Albuquerque and speaks at a rally with Sen. McCain at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum at 9:00 pm ET in Phoenix.

Vice President Cheney and Mrs. Cheney participate in a Town Hall Meeting at the John Q. Hammons Convention Center in Joplin, MO at 1:20 pm ET. The Vice President then speaks at a BC'04 rally at Lake View High School in Battle Creek, MI at 5:55 pm ET.

Sen. Kerry meets with seniors at the Valley View Recreation Center to discuss the Kerry/Edwards plan to reduce prescription drug prices in Henderson, NV.

The campaign hopes to make prescripton drug costs a big issue today. We wonder why the president hasn't made bragging about his Medicare bill with that huge new spending a big part of his stump speech (Actually, we think we know why .).

Sen. Edwards is vacationing at his family home in North Carolina until Friday.

In Florida, counties will conduct public tests of their voting equipment. And "Unfit for Command" is in bookstores everywhere today.

ABC News Vote 2004: the politics of Porter Goss:

The Los Angeles Times' Ed Chen perfectly descriptive lead: "Rep. Porter J. Goss almost certainly will win approval by the Senate as CIA director, but reaction to his nomination on Capitol Hill suggested Tuesday that the confirmation process could be like a visit to the dentist quick but painful." LINK

Nice Demo op job planting lots of anti-Kerry, anti-CIA quotes in the media re: Mr. Goss, which serves, among other goals, to stir up anxiety within the CIA about the prospect of an insider-outsider taking over.

The New York Times ' David Sanger writes: "In the last two months Mr. Goss has engendered considerable ill will within the very organization he has been tapped to lead, by declaring in a committee report in June that the C.I.A. has been 'ignoring its core mission' and was in 'dysfunctional denial of any need for corrective action.'" LINK

The Wall Street Journal 's David Cloud wraps Goss nomination, Noting that "If Mr. Goss is confirmed, Mr. Bush can claim that as another step forward, while getting an ally who shares his cautious approach to intelligence reform."

Interestingly, one of Mr. Goss' most vociferous critics is uber-neocon Michael Ledeen, who wrote in The Corner yesterday, "I think it's a terrible choice. Not because it will be controversial (Rockefeller's opposition actually speaks well of Goss, in my view at least), but because CIA badly needs an outsider, not someone who is part of the failed culture. And Goss is an insider. First he worked at the failed Agency. Then he worked at the failed oversight committee in Congress."

With apologies to Bo Jones, here are four must-read graphs from the Allen/Pincus article in today's Post:

"Administration officials said the White House calculated that the president could not lose: Democrats would either cave when faced with a fight, or Bush could accuse them of obstructing CIA stability at a time when the nation is under threat of a terrorist attack." LINK

"Republican officials said the White House is also worried by polls showing erosion in Bush's image as commander in chief after Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) endorsed, more than a week before Bush, a reorganization of the intelligence services recommended by the commission investigating the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."

"A Republican political operative, who requested anonymity because of participation in the party's regular conference calls, said the president turned back to Goss because 'poll data showed Kerry had closed the gap with Bush on handling of terrorism and was slightly ahead as fit to be commander in chief.' The operative also said polls showed the president's embrace of the commission's suggestion for a new intelligence director 'was not understood by the public.' Goss had to be named 'to show Bush was moving ahead.'"

"Officials in both parties said Bush's calculations about the outcome of the confirmation process are likely to prove correct."

The New York Times ' ed board isn't happy with the choice, arguing that "Nominating a new candidate for the old, unreformed job of director of central intelligence, as President Bush did yesterday, is not the logical or appropriate place to start" intelligence reform. LINK

Here's what one former committee staffer had to say about the nomination: LINK

"'It's fair to ask what the oversight panel was doing during this period,' said a former committee staff member who worked with Goss, speaking anonymously. 'Where was the oversight when the CIA said Saddam [Hussein] had weapons of mass destruction? The fact is congressional oversight has been weak for more than a decade.'"

The Washington Post 's Bradley Graham reports "several senior Pentagon officials warned yesterday against allowing the proposed creation of a powerful national intelligence director to obstruct the flow of timely information to troops in the field." LINK

ABC News Vote 2004: the politics of Medicare:

According to a new Harvard/Kaiser survey, "the Medicare prescription drug benefit President Bush signed into law in December has not provided the political boost among seniors that the White House and independent analysts expected," reports the Washington Post 's Ceci Connolly. LINK

"Seven months after enactment and despite the administration's $87 million promotional effort, the program remains largely a muddle for the elderly and disabled whom it is meant to help, the survey found. A fraction less than 10 percent of the 41 million eligible for the first component, a new drug discount card, have signed up."