I don’t think it is that close, but folks should be working as though it was. The “72 hour” project needs help. Sign up. Make some calls. Drive some old folks to the polls. Hold a sign at a street corner. Be an observer. But to be effective, you have to sign up now or call the local GOP office today. And if you aren’t in a swing state, e-mail everyone you know who is and urge them to vote for W and to do so even if he’s comfortably ahead to put it far out of range of Kerry’s legions of lawyers.
It seems to me that Kerry is in a box and the box is getting smaller. On Monday and Tuesday, CNN-USAToday-Gallup has Bush up 8 in Florida, and Zogby has Bush up 5 in Ohio respectively. Bush is marching through the blue states of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and Pennsylvania like Sherman headed to the sea, and Kerry’s chasing Gore’s old states of New Mexico and worried about Hawaii of all places. The big “blockbuster” in the New York Times was a dud as NBC exposed the “case of the missing munitions” as a pro-Kerry hatchet piece intended to boost a flagging liberal’s claim to be commander in chief.
In fact, the last week of a long, long campaign is exactly where it should be: focused on the question of who would be the better commander in chief. Bush has led the military through two successful, spectacular campaigns – though the third campaign to subdue the insurgency is far more difficult. Kerry is the candidate of the cut-and-run in a global war on terrorism in which cutting and running would be a disaster. That’s the choice. That’s the campaign.
It is exactly framed as Bush-Cheney ’04 wanted it framed, and not where Kerry wanted it to be. It is a clear and decisive moment for America. Because I have confidence in the American electorate outside of New York and California, I have confidence in Bush’s re-election.
But work as though it was Florida 2000 in every state. It may yet turn out to be.
