October 30, 2004
WHO'LL LEAD THE DRIVE:
Bush-Kerry race tightens in state (Mark Naymik, 10/30/04, Cleveland Plain Dealer)
Ohio voters are nearly split over their choice for president, according to a new Plain Dealer poll that shows President Bush's lead over John Kerry has shrunk to 3 percentage points, making the race statistically too close to call.Ohio voters surveyed say they favor Bush over his Democratic challenger, 48 percent to 45 percent, down from a Plain Dealer poll of the same size conducted in mid-September, when the president held an 8-point lead, 50 percent to 42 percent. Five percent of voters in the new poll say they are undecided, down from 6 percent in September. [...]
The survey of 1,500 likely voters, conducted Oct. 26-28 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, has a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points, meaning that either candidate's support could be 2.6 percentage points higher or lower.
Two percent of those interviewed for the new poll favor neither Bush nor Kerry and responded "other," though no specific alternatives were offered. Ralph Nader, who attracted 2 percent in the last Plain Dealer poll, was not included in the new poll because he has been dropped from the ballot for failing to properly collect petitions.
The Democratic strategy of keeping Ralph Nader off as many ballots as they can looks to have helped here, as has Sentaor Kerry's co-opting of the anti-war vote. It seems possible that the Libertarian candidate, Chuck Bednarik, could influence final results more than Mr. Nader in some states. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 30, 2004 9:12 AM
Presuming that you utterly mangled Michael Badnarik's name just to toy with your oh-so-beloved libertarian readers...
Posted by: Semolina Pilchard at October 30, 2004 9:44 AMEither that or he's more of a football fan than he'll let on.
Posted by: Brandon at October 30, 2004 10:06 AMI think Kerry has run very effective ads in Ohio, very emotional and negative, and they seem more numerous than Bush ads.
We need the ad I heard on talk show (syndicated) where a litany of Kerry sound bites contradict eaCH OTHER. It is powerful but I don't hear it anywhere.
Posted by: Perry at October 30, 2004 10:14 AMOh, I see. Chuck Bednarik is a famous football player.
I guess the Bednarik line may have been what even the old-timers call irony...
Posted by: Semolina Pilchard at October 30, 2004 10:15 AMOn local NPR radio station, I think they may only be running Kerry ads, can't recall hearing a Bush ad there.
Posted by: Perry at October 30, 2004 10:17 AMNot just "a famous football player," but a famous Philadelphia Eagle. Perhaps most famous for two things: He was one of the last players to "go both ways" (Not that there's anything wrong with that!) and he brutally collided with Frank Gifford and knocked him out cold. (Which might explain why Gifford later married his current wife.)
Semolina:
Note the subtlety, to the point of obscurity, with which the mistaken football reference ties into the headline too?
Posted by: oj at October 30, 2004 5:25 PMJust hear that the Dipatch poll was comming at plus three. This "down" from plus 7 in October. But I regard all of this as noise.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at October 30, 2004 7:37 PM