More Good Poll News
Deborah Orin writes the lead article on President Bush's speech in the New York Post. Her account includes this information about an Ohio focus group:
Pollster Frank Luntz said Bush did very well with his MSNBC focus group of 21 swing voters in the much-watched state of Ohio — 17 had a positive reaction to the speech and only four were negative."This was a home run — that's the second strongest positive reaction I've ever had to a speech. Only Al Gore in 2000 did better," said Luntz, adding that 13 of his 21 voters switched to Bush from "undecided" or Kerry after the speech.
And today's Rasmussen tracking poll again shows President Bush with a four-point lead.
I've just arrived home from the convention; I was on the same flight with a number of members of the Minnesota delegation, including Congressmen Mark Kennedy and John Kline. Everyone was in a celebratory mood. Riding home in a taxi, I listened to the last fifteen minutes of Bush's speech on the radio. It was even better than I remembered it. The thought that kept running through my mind was: John Kerry is talking about Vietnam, and President Bush is talking about freedom. Is that a mismatch, or what?
ONE MORE THING: John Kerry released a statement last night that said:
"The vice president even called me unfit for office," Kerry railed in remarks released by his campaign last night shortly before President Bush's address to the GOP convention."I guess I'll leave it up to the voters whether five [draft] deferments makes someone more qualified to defend this nation than two tours of duty."
Cheney, of course, said no such thing. The text of his speech is here. For what it's worth, here is what Cheney said about Kerry's Vietnam service: "The President's opponent is an experienced senator. He speaks often of his service in Vietnam, and we honor him for it."
But what on earth is Kerry thinking? I doubt whether there is a single voter who cares whether Cheney served in Vietnam. (This would be the case even if John Edwards were a veteran, but he isn't.) After a month of getting hammered by the Swifties, Kerry desperately needs to talk about something other than Vietnam. To suggest, explicitly, that his Vietnam service is a prime qualification for office--the prime qualification, apparently--puts him right back where the Swifties want him. And it leaves Kerry mired in a quagmire of petty mud-throwing while President Bush is talking in soaring terms about extending the reach of freedom throughout the world. This seems unbelievably dumb to me.
