Long, long ago (before last week), Charlie Cook was assessing the issues and the race. National security and 9/11 favored Bush. Health care, the economy and jobs favored Kerry. And Iraq was an 'iffy proposition' because half the country supported it and half didn't (pretty much along partisan lines).
But a week is a lifetime in politics. TANG has its red meat appeal, but by itself means little (in context with Bush's dishonesty about Iraq and other issues, one can argue it shows a pattern). The economy is what it is, and will have local but not national appeal (the local stuff matters, however, especially in the battleground states). 9/11 has peaked and will be around in lesser amounts as we move through the fall, brought up by Bush at every opportunity despite the Jersey girls' endorsement of Kerry (and they are in a position to know the truths about 9/11 more than anyone).
That brings us to Iraq. Assume the Gallup poll oversamples Republicans. Back on September 3-5 before the recent violence, admissions the war is lost and the Intel report that we got it all wrong about WMD (and sanctions worked) 49% thought it was worth going to war and 48% didn't. This matches most polls, although there's a much higher level of unhappiness that the pollsters are not picking up. Even GOP partisans realize this is a historical screw-up and are not willing to completely trust the polls.
It seems every day there's something keeping Iraq in the news, and not to Bush's benefit. Today's story is from England, where the Torygraph tells us about the pre-war "Secret Papers":
They told the Prime Minister that there was a risk of the Iraqi system "reverting to type" after a war, with a future government acquiring the very weapons of mass destruction that an attack would be designed to remove.
The documents further show that the Prime Minister was advised that he would have to "wrong foot" Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, and that British officials believed that President George W Bush merely wanted to complete his father's "unfinished business" in a "grudge match" against Saddam.
But it is the warning of the likely aftermath - more than a year in advance, as Mr Blair was deciding to commit Britain to joining a US-led invasion - that is likely to cause most controversy and embarrassment in both London and Washington.
More than 900 allied troops have been killed in Iraq since the end of the war, 33 of them British. More than 10,000 civilians are believed to have been killed.
At least 13 civilians died yesterday in a suicide bomb attack on a police checkpoint in Baghdad. The Iraqi health ministry said a further 45 civilians had died in US air attacks on Fallujah overnight.
Because of National Guard involvement, there's a huge number of families (nominal parts of the GOP base) getting their news from Iraq through those they know and love. They won't tell the pollsters their C-in-C is a liability. But they may just have their say at the polls along with the rest of us. This particular group doesn't like when Kerry attacks the POTUS. He doesn't have to. He just has to attack the war and those responsible for the poor planning.
Want to see how it's done?
Two senior Republican senators yesterday rebuked the Bush administration over its handling of Iraq, saying its proposal to divert $3.46 billion in reconstruction funds to mostly beef up security showed that U.S. policy was in disarray.
The harsh comments by Sens. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska contrasted with the upbeat statements on Iraq that President Bush gives as he campaigns for reelection.
Their bleak assessment followed by a day an Inquirer Washington Bureau report that some current and former U.S. officials were worried that Bush's plan for creating a stable democracy in Iraq was in danger of failing.
The proposal to divert the reconstruction aid "does not add up in my opinion to a pretty picture, to a picture that shows that we're winning," Hagel said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "But it does add up to this: an acknowledgment that we are in deep trouble."
Even Republicans are smart enough to draw the right conclusions, even if they won't all admit it.