AP: Kerry Opens Leads in Several Key States

[West Coast Democrat]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&e=2...

WASHINGTON - Sen. John Kerry has opened narrow leads in Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire and a handful of other battleground state polls since accepting the Democratic nomination, increasing pressure on President Bush to regain lost ground at the Republican National Convention.

(snip)

"You never want to point to your best poll numbers or your worst poll numbers, because neither hold," said Democratic strategist Dane Strother. The Kerry campaign has plenty of positive numbers to cite, including:

_ A Quinnipiac University poll showing Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards with a slight lead in Florida over Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney _ An Epic-MRA survey suggesting that Michigan is tilting slightly toward the Democratic ticket. _ An American Research Group survey showing Kerry-Edwards with small lead in New Hampshire.

(snip)

In addition, Pennsylvania and Oregon — a combined 28 electoral votes — were evenly split in July, and now the states appear to tilt toward Kerry, according to private polling and interviews with strategists in both parties.

[Old and In the Way]

1. The pressure for Bush to hit a home run at the convention will be

enormous. I think he'll strike out.

[hippiegranny]

4. he will strike out

but as long as he doesn't drool on himself the media will declare him "strong and forceful, blah blah blah." this idiot can't even ride a bike or eat a pretzel, yet the media pretends he's a superhero. don't count on a poor performance doing him in, not when he has a world class cheerleading squad to tell the masses otherwise.

[Poiuyt]

10. He won't strike out

If he has time to practice a speech (like Reagan's eulogy), he can be, well, at least not embarrassing to himself. He'll never be as good as Edwards or Obama, but I don't think he'll be mispronouncing too many words. That will come in the debates.

[West Coast Democrat]

5. CNN & Fox will try to spin it positive for several weeks...

then the debates will come, and they'll spin for * after those as well.

It may end up being closer at the end than those polls show, but I really don't see how * could end up winning Oregon for example.

[mom cat]

2. Yabba Dabba Doo!!!

[xyboymil]

3. Kerry is up 3 in Ohio as well now...

If he nails down Michigan, Florida and Ohio...no way Bush can win. And thats not liberal spin, thats the Republican party fully admitting it.

[Yupster]

8. Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio

If Kerry can win three of those four, he's won.

[jackstraw45]

6. RON FOURNIER at it again...whoring as usual.

" Buoyed by the polls, Kerry's team is growing confident — maybe too confident for some Democrats. "

Has to use imaginary sources to make Kerry look bad SOMEHOW.

Fournier always makes these sources up to put SOME kind of dig in at Kerry.

Is this journalism? NO

Faux-news style propaganda? YES

[West Coast Democrat]

9. Of course!

Ron Fournier has built a name for himself

[Feanorcurufinwe]

7. Bush needs a 10-15 pt bounce to maintain the pretense of viability nt

[West Coast Democrat]

11. Let's set the expectations high

why not?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

12. Well, I mean it. Kerry is now leading 3-5% in almost every poll.

And all trends look positive for Kerry. Even people like Novakula are starting to see the writing on the wall. Bush needs some momentum soon or it's effectively over.

[West Coast Democrat]

13. I agree...if * only gets a substantial bounce in the Gallup poll...

he's finished.