I DON'T CARE HOW FAR BEHIND I AM, WE'RE PUMPING MONEY INTO OHIO:

Jersey, Ohio polls put Dems in a tizzy (HELEN KENNEDY, 9/22/04, NY DAILY NEWS)

As new polls showed President Bush 10 points ahead in crucial Ohio and both men tied at 48% in New Jersey, once a supposedly safe Democratic state, the candidate proclaimed himself unbothered. [...]

The polls showed voters are unhappy about Iraq and the economy, but they think Bush would do a better job handling terrorism.

"They see terrorism as a more important issue than the economy or health care - Kerry's issues," said Quinnipiac pollster Mickey Carroll, who surveyed the Garden State. "The vacant skyline where the World Trade Center once stood brings the threat of terrorism home to New Jersey across the river."

Kerry's press conference yesterday - his first since early August - vividly underscored his biggest problem: six weeks before the election, nine of the 11 questions were still attempts to clarify his 2003 vote for the war.

Primary voters chose Kerry largely because of that vote, believing only a hawk could successfully face Bush. But Kerry's inability to articulate a clear position has become his Achilles heel, bogging him down in a quagmire of questions about the past instead of talking about the future.

The always popular, and usually disdainful, claim of pols and pundits that they "don't follow the polls" ignores the ways in which results shape the behavior of candidates, voters and the media.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 22, 2004 8:48 AM