Democracy Corps has released
slides summarizing the state of the race after the second debate. I did a much longer summary of the last poll, but I will stick to the highlights on this one. Also
take a look at the companion memo as well.
Hit the link for more poll wonkery ...
Kerry has consolidated the union base (page 15). In the early summer, Kerry was doing poorly, relative to Gore, among union households. Apparently his attacks on Bush's Iraq policy and his calm demeanor have pushed them back into the Democratic Column. Likewise, he has consolidated votes among Single White Females.
There are still voters who whill vote D in Congress, but not vote for Kerry (page 13). According to Greenberg & Co, these groups are primarily (a) older women, and (b) younger white women without a college education. I'm not sure why this is. Greenberg claims that these voters care about the economy and health care; Republicans claim they are "security moms". Who knows.
Kerry lost ground in three "target groups" in the debates (page 15). Those are group (b) above, White Catholics, and young white voters.
Kerry is performing better than expected among non-evangelical Christians. This is totally unsurprising; first, many mainline Protestant denominations emphasize peace and social justice. Second, a certain fraction of mainline Protestants are explicitly tolerant of gay rights. A third (though unlikely) possibility is that a number of people who previously identified as "none" have re-emphasized that the y are Christian "but not like George Bush". Again, this is highly unlikely. Kerry's overperformance among mainline Protestants is keeping in the hunt even though he underperforms among women.
So, with all of this said, what must happen in the third debate? Here's my hypothesis
(1) After 12 years, it's still the economy stupid. That includes employment, education, college tuition, and health care costs. Kerry must win the battle of plans here, because unlike Bush the Elder, Dubya has "plans" for all of these things. Now, they are tremendously bad plans, by and large, but they are "plans", and no one in the media understands policy. Kerry cannot allow bush to muddy the waters on these issues; his plans must be better for any number of reasons. Personally, I am with Mark Schmidtt; Kerry should say that with the Medicare changes under Bush, government "spends more but does less" and he will shoot for a government that "does more without spending more". This makes for a creative attack that appeals to "fiscal conservatives".
(2) Hopefully there will not be questions on abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research. If gay marriage comes up, Kerry's best response is that this is playing politics with the constitution, forcing us to ignore important things like health care, and to mention that the Vice President's daughter is gay.
(3) Bring up the fact that Bush didn't want to talk to the AARP.