In The Hotline’s survey of state polls, President Bush leads in 24 states worth 211 electoral votes and John Kerry leads in 23 states worth 285 electoral votes (270 needed to win). . . . Washington Post poll: Bush-Cheney 46 percent, Kerry-Edwards 46 percent, Nader-Camejo 4 percent. . . . Bush: “Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq. We removed a declared enemy of America, who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder, and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them. In the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take.” . . . Acting CIA director John McLaughlin: “This is about as serious a threat environment as I have seen since 9/11.” . . . Bush: “My opponent said he is proud that he and his running mate voted against funding the troops. … He’s entitled to his view. But members of Congress should not vote to send troops into battle, and then vote against funding them, and then brag about it.” . . . “You cannot be pro-small business and pro-trial lawyer at the same time,” says Bush. “You have to choose. My opponent made his choice and he put [Edwards] on the ticket.” … In Time poll, 55 percent say Edwards’s trial-lawyer background means that he “fought for the average person” and 26 percent say he contributed “to frivolous lawsuits.” . . . Bush: “When judges insist on imposing their arbitrary will on the people, the only alternative left to the people is an amendment to the Constitution—the only law a court cannot overturn. A constitutional amendment should never be undertaken lightly—yet to defend marriage, our nation has no other choice.”
Kerry, in Washington Post: “We have not stood up and attacked our opponents in personal ways.” . . . Sen. Zell Miller (D., Ga.) on Kerry’s celebrity fundraiser in New York City: “John Kerry just sat there, grinning like a mule eating briars.” . . . Senate minority leader Tom Daschle (D., S.D.) denies claim of filmmaker Michael Moore that they hugged after D.C. screening of Fahrenheit 9/11. . . . Daschle says he won’t attend Kerry’s acceptance speech at Democratic National Convention. .. . Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter on why Sen. Hillary Clinton (D., N.Y.) originally wasn’t invited to speak at convention, in New York Times: “She never asked.” . . . “The problem is that some of [Kerry’s] positions in the Senate won’t go over too well with some of the people,” says Rep. Collin Peterson (D., Minn.) to AP. “He voted for gun control and against right-to-life.” . . . Activists in Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, and elsewhere scramble to promote ballot initiatives banning gay marriage.
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