Too Early To Panic

The only poll that matters is on Election Day,” the trailing candidate typically asserts; but the polling eight months before Election 2004 has mattered, in contributing to the gloomy mood among many of President Bush’s supporters. Most polls since late January have the president tied with or trailing John Kerry, and Bush campaign strategists counsel Republicans to get used to it because they don’t expect a better showing until the fall. Campaign officials have launched their offensive against Kerry, even as some conservatives look for silver linings in a Bush defeat and the “Key Republicans” who “Admit Anxiety Over Campaign” make headlines.

As the battle is joined, there’s trouble brewing in GOP ranks. Following weeks of Republican nail-biting over White House missteps ranging from the National Guard controversy and overblown predictions in the president’s Economic Report to the administration’s botched nomination of a manufacturing gum, supporters are now wondering whether the re-elect campaign, too, is stumbling.

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Kate O'Beirne

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John Kerry

The only poll that matters is on Election Day,” the trailing candidate typically asserts; but the polling eight months before Election 2004 has mattered, in contributing to the gloomy mood among many of President Bush’s supporters. Most polls since late January have the president tied with or trailing John Kerry, and Bush campaign strategists counsel Republicans to get used to it because they don’t expect a better showing until the fall. Campaign officials have launched their offensive against Kerry, even as some conservatives look for silver linings in a Bush defeat and the “Key Republicans” who “Admit Anxiety Over Campaign” make headlines.

As the battle is joined, there’s trouble brewing in GOP ranks. Following weeks of Republican nail-biting over White House missteps ranging from the National Guard controversy and overblown predictions in the president’s Economic Report to the administration’s botched nomination of a manufacturing gum, supporters are now wondering whether the re-elect campaign, too, is stumbling.