What's Black and White (and Red, White and Blue) All Over?

ByABC News

October 7, 2004, 12:49 PM

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2004  -- NOTED NOW

26 days until election day
1 day until the second presidential debate moderated by ABC News' Charles Gibson
6 days until the third presidential debate

NEWS SUMMARY

On the eve of what could be the most decisive day in the long, hard march that is the 2004 presidential campaign, everywhere you look things are pretty much as they've been all year:

— President Bush walks Clinton-like through a political hailstorm over Iraq (in this instance: the Duelfer report), his case for war intellectually undermined (at least in Blue America … ), but not necessarily having his chances for reelection (in Purple America) decisively affected.

— President Bush is also using the "negative frame" that his campaign selected way back in March to brand John Kerry as unacceptable. Check out the language the POTUS uses in a mass fundraising e-mail that just went out in his name, with verbiage that echoes yesterday's full fuselage attack speech — pretty much the greatest hits of the rock band Gillespie and Schmidt:

"My opponent continues his pattern of confusing contradictions. … The American President must speak clearly, … my opponent's weak, vacillating views … John Kerry the most liberal member of the United States Senate. When the competition includes Ted Kennedy, that's really saying something. … He said: 'Well, I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.' … .My opponent has a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of this war against terror, and he has no plan to win in Iraq."

— To soften all of this, Laura Bush was deployed on last night's Tonight Show to make Bushie seem warm and fuzzy.

— Senator Kerry is still saying things like this (in this instance: to ink-stained wretch Bill Keller in the New York Times ): "I'm going to talk somewhere, in an appropriate moment — I'm not sure when or where — you know values and faith." (Note to Senator Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president: THE ELECTION IS IN 26 DAYS!!!)

— With all eyes constantly set on 270 electoral votes, people with the last names "Bush," "Kerry," "Cheney," and "Edwards" are today making appearances in these not-insignificant states: Wisconsin, Florida, Colorado, Oregon, Iowa, and Pennsylvania.

— Lynne Cheney has unleashed her famously tart, sparkling rancor, out of love of spouse and country.

— Indices of greater-than-usual public interest keep cropping up, with boffo TV ratings for the veep debate.

— The politics of 9/11 hovers over everything.

— Mike McCurry has the political press corps eating out of the palm of his hand (OK, that's actually relatively new this cycle — but oh-so-familiar … ).

— No matter how big the developments on Capitol Hill seem to be to the breathless gang at Roll Call , nothing that happens there breaks through on the presidential campaign trail. (Will John Kerry even mention Tom DeLay?)

— Ralph Nader is somewhat below the radar, hovering off to the side of the stage, today making a campaign stop at the Dickensian-named "Egg of the Plaza."

— Howard Dean is meeting up!!!

President Bush brings his retooled stump speech to Wisconsin today, continuing his week-long Blue-state tour to a state that Gore won in 2000 by a measly 5,000 votes. He speaks at a single rally — 4:20 pm ET in Wausau, WI, part of a county that was separated in 2000 by only 2,300 votes out of almost 60,000.

Speaking of Blue states, Senator John Edwards heads into New Jersey today for the second time in nine days. The state which went for Gore in 2000 by 15 percentage points in 2000 has slowly emerged as a bit of a battleground this time around. The latest post-presidential debate Quinnipiac University poll, gave Kerry a 3% lead, barely outside the margin of error of 2.9%. LINK

Edwards holds a 1:00 pm town hall focusing on homeland security at the port in Bayonne, but not before appealing to the overwhelmingly female audiences of "Live with Regis and Kelly" and "The View" — on which he appears live at 9:00 am and 11:00 am, respectively in many markets. Edwards also holds a 7:00 pm fundraiser that is open only to a print pool reporter.

Edwards' sparring partner Vice President Cheney continues a two-full-day visit to Florida with two events: a 9:00 am town hall in Miami and an 11:30 am roundtable in Fort Myers.

In the Reddish state of Colorado Senator John Kerry continues his seclusion outside of Denver, although he is scheduled to hold some sort of welcoming when he arrives in St. Louis just in time for the local 10:00 pm news. His taped interview with BET's Ed Gordon airs tonight, but if the excerpts released yesterday are any indication, the interview makes no news.

Laura Bush comes off her Tonight Show interview to campaign in Sioux City, IA and Philadelphia. Teresa Heinz Kerry is in Eugene, OR.

Ralph Nader is in Albany, Syracuse, and Ithica, NY today.

And don't forget — the new JibJab cartoon will be released tonight on The Tonight Show.

The politics of Iraq:

Just in case you missed this the first time:

Writes Bob Novak: "When I reported in this column Sept. 20 that there is 'strong feeling' in the 'Bush administration policymaking apparatus' that 'U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year,' Republican politicians — most recently Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman — disagreed. But Don Rumsfeld has not contradicted me." LINK

"Nobody from the administration has officially rejected my column. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, in his usual teasing of words, says pretty much what I did. While politicians such as Mehlman talk about 'victory' in Iraq and President Bush implies it, war planners such as Rumsfeld do not. These realists recognize that aims in this ugly war have been reduced."

USA Today 's Barbara Slavin offers more data related to Novak's assertion. LINK

You'll want to read this entire column.

The Two Bills in New Hampshire pass this along:

Nashua Telegraph headline: Inspector: Iraq had no WMD's

Manchester Union Leader page A5 (next to "In Brief" with photo of the back of Kobe Bryant's alleged victim): "No proof Saddam had WMD, but he was still a threat."

Every accounting gives the "intent" finding fair play, but we see the Duelfer report fitting a bit more easily into John Kerry's preparation for the St. Louis debate than the president's.

"In his report, and in testimony Wednesday to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Duelfer refuted many of the Bush administration's most dramatic claims before the war … " write the Los Angeles Times' Drogin and Miller. LINK

The headline over Glenn Kessler's story reads "War's Rationales Are Undermined One More Time" and the subhead reads "Revelations May Hurt Bush's Image." He writes that "The risk for the Bush campaign is that the drip-drip of the revelations will slowly erode the advantage that the president has held among voters for his handling of the Iraq war and especially the struggle against terrorism." LINK

The New York Times ' editorial board thinks the nothing in Duelfer's report "provides Mr. Bush with the justification he wanted for a preventive war because the weapons programs did not exist." LINK