Helen Thomas is scared to death of a potential George W. Bush second term.

Helen is always a very comical read. It's really hard to believe that she was once the "dean" of the White House press corps.

CNN/USA Today/Gallup: Bush 49, Kerry 47, Nader <1

CNN/USAT/Gallup (allocating undecideds): Bush 49, Kerry 49, Nader 1

NBC/WSJ: Bush 48, Kerry 47, Nader 1

CBS News/NY Times: Bush 49, Kerry 46, Nader 1 | Bush JA @ 49%

Pew Research: Bush 48, Kerry 45, Nader 1

Pew Research (allocating undecideds): Bush 51, Kerry 48, Nader 1

Tracking Polls:

ABC News/Washington Post: Bush 48, Kerry 48, Nader <1

FOX: Bush 46, Kerry 46, Nader 1

Reuters/Zogby: Kerry 48, Bush 48, Nader 1

Rasmussen: Bush 49, Kerry 48

TIPP: Bush 48, Kerry 43, Nader 1

The average of the polls in the head to head matchup between Bush and Kerry has Bush ahead by 2.4 percent.

(via RealClear Politics)

Here is Jim Geraghty's GOP "Middle Cheese" report:

Boy - a couple of hours go by, and my e-mailbox is filled with "What's the latest? WHAT'S THE LATEST???" messages. Folks, it is Sunday, with beautiful weather here in Washington. Take a deep breath, go play with the kids, watch some football. Knock on doors or do whatever you're doing for the campaign you're supporting. Visit the house of worship of your choice.

Okay - now that I've said that... here's the latest from the GOP middle cheese, reporting on what the big cheeses are saying:

Reaction to today's polls? "Very good, both battleground states and nationally." Nationally, Bush is up by an average of 2.5 percent. Whatever boost Kerry is getting is consistent with the usual Friday-Saturday bump he gets.

The Middle Cheese didn't say this, but I think there is widespread belief in those ranks that on weekends, Republicans are out doing church, soccer practice, high school & college football, other family activities which keeps them away from pollsters' phone calls.

The word on Ohio? "Looking better and better."
The "bad news" I reported on about New Hampshire earlier may have been premature. The state is still "very much in play."

They don't know where Terry McAuliffe was getting his numbers showing absentees giving Kerry a big lead. They said all the internal polls for Bush in Iowa continue to be a pleasant surprise. Vice President Cheney may sneak in a last-minute visit to Fort Dodge Iowa before the long haul to Honolulu for an 11:30 Hawaii time rally.

I'm starting to like these "middle cheese" reports by Geraghty.

A new Democratic spin is emerging to try and counter the reemergence of Osama bin Laden. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell uttered it today on Fox News Sunday.

The Democrats now believe that Osama bin Laden would like George W. Bush reelected, and that the videotape released Friday was timed to help the president. They believe that Osama considers the hated Bush a wonderful recruiting tool for Al Qaeda.

Picking myself up off the floor, trying to stop the laughing from this Rendell howler, I ask the following:

HUH?

Let me get this straight. Governor Rendell just said that Osama bin Laden would like four more years of George W. Bush? Ok, that's verified.

Right.

Osama wants four more years of the man who chased him out of Afghanistan, destroyed his terrorist camps, killed most of his deputies and has so diminished his prestige that he cannot attack America on the eve of the election, but can only issue a videotape.

Sure, Governor Rendell. Right.

Kerry strategist Bob Shrum looked a little angry trying to answer Chris Wallace's questions today on Fox News Sunday. Note to the Kerry Campaign - no Bob Shrum on television for the next two days. Shrum looked defensive and nervous. The only answer he could come up with on the "377 tons" of arms was that "we sent our troops in without body armor." He then veered off to health care, jobs, etc. He had no answer to the question, and was irritated that Wallace kept bringing up national security, even though John Kerry is the one who has harped on a fraudulent New York Times story about Iraq all week long.

This was in direct contrast to Karen Hughes, when answering the first hardball question from Wallace - "Why haven't we caught Osama bin Laden?" Hughes answered "because he is hiding," and then went on to describe the continual dismantling of Al Qaeda. She seemed confident and sure of her answers.

The defensive and irritable Bob Shrum and the confident and upbeat Karen Hughes. I think this tells us a lot about where each campaign sees this race at the moment, regardless of what any public poll indicates.

Approximately 27,000 voters are simultaneously registered to vote in both the crucial states of Ohio and Florida. There is very little that can be done to detect them, according to an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Despite increased scrutiny of voting procedures following the 2000 election - and a federal reform law aimed at shoring up the patchwork system - virtually nothing prevents transient voters from casting ballots in multiple states, testing a system that relies more on the honesty of individual voters than on any checks and balances.

As many as 400 people voted in Ohio and Florida in the same election over the past four years, records show. In the 2000 presidential election, about 100 Ohio voters also cast ballots in Florida - where the presidential race was decided by just 537 votes.

And though some states exchange voting records as residents move, it is not legally required, state officials say.

This opens a gaping hole in the election system, allowing thousands of voters to alternate between states, voting in Ohio in one election and in Florida the next - a practice frowned on by election officials in both states.

Florida's secretary of state, Glenda Hood, asked the U.S. Justice Department to launch an investigation of double-voting after other newspapers reported similar problems between Florida and other states.

But there is little that election officials can do to stop double-voting from occurring this week, if it hasn't happened already. For example:

More than 300 voters from Cuyahoga, Hamilton and Franklin counties received Ohio absentee ballots for Tuesday's election, though they are also eligible to vote in Florida. Many of these voters requested their Ohio ballots within days or weeks of registering to vote in Florida.

At least a handful of voters from the three counties requested absentee ballots from both states - potentially allowing them to vote twice without even going to a polling place.

Some voters registered in both states within the same month.

Besides double-voters, records also show that thousands of voters have toggled from Ohio to Florida and back again since 2000. For example, 1,400 voters cast ballots in Ohio in 2000 and 2002 after registering in Florida.

Powerline on what might be happening in Iowa:

This is from ABC's The Note:

This from the Des Moines Register Poll is potentially really key for Iowa and perhaps beyond: "Twenty-seven percent of Iowa adults surveyed said they had already voted. Kerry leads Bush, 52 percent to 41 percent, among that group of early-bird voters. Among the 73 percent who said they definitely would vote on Tuesday, Kerry and Bush are tied."

Iowa is the Upper Midwest state I've felt most confident about, but if this survey is anywhere near accurate, it's bad news. With twenty-seven percent of the votes cast, anything like an 11-point lead will be hard to make up.

Mark Steyn writes about those who have endorsed John Kerry:

Reading the media "endorsements" of John Kerry is like having lunch with a woman who wants to tell you about her great new boyfriend. She spends seven-eighths of the time bitching about the old boyfriend -- cocky, hot-headed, insensitive, never wants to listen, never gonna change -- and in the remaining few minutes tries to come up with the new guy's good points:

"Mr. Kerry himself is not a compelling candidate. But this year he offers a --"

Yes?

"-- a respite, a pause for reappraisal."

That's The Economist, pining for a quiet night in.

"What the Republicans tar as waffling strikes us as --"

Hmm. What is le mot juste?

"-- flexibility."

That's my Sun-Times colleagues, looking for a man they -- or, at any rate, Jacques Chirac and Kofi Annan -- can mold.

"According to the Almanac of American Politics, Kerry is 'more respectful of economic free markets' and more inclined to an expansionist foreign policy than --"

Than Ronald Reagan?

"-- than other liberal Democrats."

Oh, well. That's the Des Moines Register, arguing that he doesn't seem like a wimp and a loser if you put him in a room full of even bigger wimps and losers.

"We have misgivings about Kerry's ability to connect with ordinary people. We were frustrated by his long-winded explanations --"

But?

"His zigs and zags reflect his digestion of new information and his arrival at new insights." Honestly, sighs the Virginian Pilot, he only comes over like a snooty windbag because he's so much smarter than us.

"Mr. Kerry's description of the war as a 'diversion' does not inspire confidence in his determination to see it through. But Mr. Kerry has repeatedly pledged not to cut and run from Iraq --"

You're right, says the Washington Post, he has a commitment problem, but we'll work that out after the wedding.

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan in the New Republic sounds like some blousy torch singer sitting atop the piano in a Jazz Age cabaret doing one of those laundry-list songs ruefully adumbrating her lover's faults: "His record is undistinguished, and where it stands out, mainly regrettable. He intuitively believes that if a problem exists, it is the government's job to fix it. He has far too much faith in international institutions, like the corrupt and feckless U.N., in the tasks of global management. He got the Cold War wrong. He got the first Gulf War wrong --"

If he were Jane Monheit on her excellent new CD, he'd conclude:

"I love him because he's --

I don't know --

Because he's just my Bill."

But, in this case, the point seems to be:

"I love him because he's --

I don't know --

Because he's just not Bush."

Sullivan's big idea is that the best way to force the Democrats to get serious about the war is to put them in charge of it. That's a helluva leap of faith -- and, in John Kerry's case, it's at odds with a 30-year track record of not being serious on the Cold War, Grenada, Central America, the first Gulf War, etc. As Dr. Laura would advise, you should never marry a man in hopes of reforming him.

In that respect, the Qaqaagate story is fascinating. What happened and when in Saddam's al-Qaqaa facility is somewhat murky. Had the shameless gang at "60 Minutes" had their way, the missing explosives story would have aired 36 hours before the polls opened, with no time for anybody to put the alternative to the Bush incompetence scenario -- i.e., that the stuff was moved to Syria before the war began. But never mind that. And never mind that the source for this story is a discredited U.N. official, Mohammed el-Baradei, on whose watch the IAEA not only missed entirely Libya's WMD program but has proved remarkably accommodating of Iran's.

Forget all that. The main problem with this story is that it makes no sense in terms of the Democrats' own narrative. For a year and a half, they've told us there were no WMD, Saddam wasn't a threat, and "BUSH LIED!!!!!!!!!" about it all. I happen to disagree with that, but there's no doubt that simply by hammering it home all day and night the Dems had some effect. Now they're saying whoa, let's back up, yes, as it happens, these non-existent weapons that Bush lied about the non-threatening Saddam having he did, in fact, have -- and that fool Bush let the non-existent weapons get away.

My version of this story -- they were smuggled out to Syria pre-invasion -- fits the Bush view of the war. But Kerry's version of this story undermines the Kerry view of the war -- or, at any rate, the most recent Kerry view of the war. That's the best clue as to the resolve he'd show as President: He has no internal conviction of his own, and so his campaign has run on incoherent reflex oppositionism, as, indeed, his Senate career has -- if America had followed the positions advocated by John Kerry, there would have been no Reagan arms build-up, and the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact would have lingered on, and their clients in Grenada would have destabilized the rest of the Caribbean, and Latin America would not have been democratized, and Saddam Hussein would still be in power and still controlling Kuwait. Kerry's lovebirds at the Washington Post et al. are dreaming of a transformation in their unlovely swain that would be at odds not just with his last three decades but with his last three weeks.

It's only a day or so now till the chad-dangling round of Campaign 2004 begins but, when the lawsuits are over and the bloodletting begins, serious Democrats need to confront the intellectual emptiness of their party, which Kerry's campaign embodies all too well. The Dems got a full tank from FDR, a top-up in the Civil Rights era, and they've been running on fumes for 30 years. Their last star, Bill Clinton, has no legacy because, deft as he was, his Democratic Party had no purpose other than as a vehicle for promoting his own indispensability. When he left, the Democrats became a party running on personality with no personalities to run. Hence, the Kerry candidacy. Despite the best efforts of American editorialists, there's no there there.

I especially like Steyn's comments about Andrew Sullivan. I mean, give me a break. Sullivan is going to back Kerry even though he thinks "His record is undistinguished, and where it stands out, mainly regrettable. He intuitively believes that if a problem exists, it is the government's job to fix it. He has far too much faith in international institutions, like the corrupt and feckless U.N., in the tasks of global management. He got the Cold War wrong. He got the first Gulf War wrong --" ??????

There is only one reason Andrew Sullivan is really ticked at George W. Bush, and it's the gay marriage issue. End of story.

The Pentagon is developing a new strategy to drive a "wedge" between the various Iraqi insurgency groups as the insurgency mounts.

Joseph Perkins (via Powerline) of the San Diego-Union Tribune on what Al Gore has left as his legacy to America:

Richard Nixon would have captured the 1960 presidential election but for five states he lost by 5,000 votes or fewer – Missouri, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico and Hawaii.

Gerald Ford would have retained the presidency in 1976 but for two states he lost by no more than 5,600 votes – Ohio and Hawaii.

Though the 1960 and 1976 elections were close, though they turned on a few thousand votes in a handful of states, the outcomes were faithfully accepted by the American people, by Republicans and Democrats alike.

That's because neither Nixon or Ford demanded that the votes be recounted in the states in which they lost by narrow margins. And neither Nixon or Ford insisted they were denied election because of voting irregularities in some state or another.

Then there was the 2000 election.

George W. Bush and Al Gore went to bed on election night uncertain whether they had won or lost.

Later, when all of Florida's voting precincts had reported their tallies, Bush had eeked out victory in the Sunshine State, pushing him over the top in the Electoral College.

But Gore refused to accept that he lost Florida, that he lost the presidency, by so small a margin. He refused to put the national interest before his own selfish interest.

He dispatched his lawyers to the Sunshine State to contest the election. And his lawyers used every legal maneuver in their arsenal to overturn Gore's defeat – challenging the manner in which Florida conducted its balloting, claiming that certain voter blocs were disenfranchised.

The result is that a portion of the populace refuses to this day to accept the outcome of the 2000 election (despite a post-election ballot review by a consortium of media organizations that concluded, unequivocally, that Bush won Florida no matter how the votes were counted or recounted).

It is because of the Gore precedent, because he tried to win the 2000 election in the courts after losing at the ballot box, that this nation remains so bitterly divided between Republicans and Democrats.

And the nation is likely to remain bitterly divided following this year's presidential election. Because John Kerry is already gearing up to contest the outcome of the election even before voters go to the polls on Election Day.

In fact, lawyers for the Democrats already have filed some 35 lawsuits in some 17 states. And if Kerry goes down to defeat on Election Day, there almost certainly will be an avalanche of lawsuits claiming that the Democrat somehow was cheated out of the presidency.

Of course, Kerry and his fellow Democrats profess that their lawsuits are motivated only by the noble desire to defend every American's constitutional right to vote. They maintain that they simply want to ensure that every vote cast in this year's election is properly counted.

But the reality is that the rash of election-related litigation precipitated by Kerry and the Democrats is doing lasting, perhaps irreparable, damage to the democratic process in this country.

Indeed, Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, a nonprofit organization, told the Associated Press this week that all the legal wrangling is "disastrous for fundamental faith in the system" by which presidents have been elected since this nation's founding.

"Pretty soon," he said, "You get people saying, 'Shoot, then why bother to vote?' There has been such a concerted effort to beat up on the system itself that people need to step back and understand that if you destroy the very process by which your candidate gets elected, then what have you gained?"

I think it is time for a moment of grace in this year's presidential election.

John Kerry and George W. Bush ought to take a few minutes out of their schedule to have a heart to heart chat, much as Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy had six days after the 1960 presidential election.

The Democrat and Republican should agree to accept the outcome of this year's presidential election, no matter how close, no matter which of the two candidates comes out on top. They also should forswear any post-election lawsuits. And they should urge their supporters to do the same.

If Kerry and Bush were to evince such statesmanship, they not only would do much to restore faith in the American electoral system, they also would do much to promote civility between all but the most rabid Democrats and Republicans.

That would be a great service to this country.

One would hope that the loser of this year's election will indeed exhibit the kind of statesmanship that Al Gore had no capacity whatosever for.

Kerryspot has been talking to a source in the Bush campaign again:

I heard, once again, from an individual “familiar with internal discussions within the Bush campaign.” This information is what big cheeses in GOP circles are saying to middle cheeses in GOP circles.

The big picture is, Bush has the momentum and is playing offense, while Kerry is on the defensive going into Election Day. A key panic button moment for Kerry campaign came on Friday, when the candidate lectured the American people to “wake up.” The 72-hour Get-Out-The-Vote Operation has been launched. Starting Friday and continuing through Tuesday, 150,000 volunteers in the most competitive states are mobilized and will contact 18 million voters to get the President’s supporters to the polls.

This unprecedented voter turnout operation is built to negate the traditional advantage that Democrats enjoyed on turnout during the 1990s with unions and African-American churches.

The Bush team believes the personal touch is going to make a big difference. The Bush-Cheney ‘04 turnout effort will be driven by volunteers, acting on their personal beliefs and enthusiasm for this President. The Kerry campaign has turned over their grassroots operation to 527 organizations that are relying on paid employees who do not know the voters they are contacting. Will a voter be more persuaded by contact from a neighbor or contact from a stranger who is being paid to do it?

The lack of commentary yesterday about Ohio should not be interpreted as a lack of good news. The Bush team is pleased with the latest poll by the Cleveland Plain Dealer shows the President up by three points (pre-Arnie sample), and volunteers will contact over 1.2 million voters.

Two-thirds of the president’s time is spent campaigning in states that Al Gore won in 2000, and the President leads the polls in Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico — all blue states set to turn red. Hawaii, New Jersey, Michigan and Pennsylvania are all close, too close for Kerry’s comfort.

Maybe this is spin, and maybe this is happy talk. But if something is going wrong - like some red state looks like it’s going to flip - then I suspect the big cheeses would have an incentive to warn the middle cheeses and prepare them for the disappointment. Something along the lines of “Yes New Hampshire looks shaky, but we can afford to lose it, it’s only four electoral votes.” [That’s my speculation on the Granite State, not anything I’ve heard from this GOP insider.

Kerryspot talks to a longtime GOP operative about the effect of the bin Laden videotape broadcast yesterday:

Had a short conversation with Obi-Wan Kenobi, longtime GOP operative, today. Talked about the bin Laden tape, and his analysis echoed much of what you had seen elsewhere - this makes terrorism THE issue of the election, and Bush is now likely to win in something approaching a landslide.

The part that I thought was most worthy of sharing with Kerry Spot readers was when I asked, "What does Osama bin Laden think he's doing here? What's his game? What did he hope to accomplish with this tape?"

"The arrogance of evil," Obi-Wan said, sounding a bit like his movie namesake. "He really thinks the American people will listen to him. Every dictator is like this, and Saddam used to do this all the time when he did interviews with Western media. He's arrogant enough to think that if he speaks to the American people, we will actually come around to his view."

This would fit Osama’s utterly unrealistic expectation of how America would respond to 9/11. He expected us to fold up shop and leave the Middle East, and instead he's sitting around getting cave rash while Afghani women and men just elected a pro-American leader while joyously celebrating democracy in the world's spotlight.

Life is full of disappointments, Osama. My guess is you have some more awaiting you just around the corner.

True, Osama miscalculated when he hatched the 9/11 plot, and he has miscalculated now, thinking this would hurt Bush. I'm not buying the spin that I've seen elsewhere, that Osama really wants to help Bush in order to have Bush for another four years, and thereby help bin Laden's recruiting efforts. That's completely bogus. Osama wants Bush gone, but he has totally miscalculated how to accomplish that.

David Brooks of The New York Times (of all places) on Osama bin Laden's reappearance on the eve of Election 2004:

The nuisance is back!

Remember when John Kerry told Matt Bai of The Times Magazine that he wanted to reduce the terrorists to a nuisance? Kerry vowed to mitigate the problem of terrorism until it became another regrettable and tolerable fact of life, like gambling, organized crime and prostitution.

That was the interview in which he said Sept. 11 "didn't change me much at all." He said it confirmed in him a sense of urgency, "of doing the things we thought we needed to be doing."

Well, the Osama bin Laden we saw last night was not a problem that needs to be mitigated. He was not the leader of a movement that can be reduced to a nuisance.

What we saw last night was revolting. I suspect that more than anything else, he reminded everyone of the moral indignation we all felt on and after Sept. 11.

Here was this monster who killed 3,000 of our fellows showing up on our TV screens, trying to insert himself into our election, trying to lecture us on who is lying and who is telling the truth. Here was this villain traipsing through his own propaganda spiel with copycat Michael Moore rhetoric about George Bush in the schoolroom, and Jeb Bush and the 2000 Florida election.

Here was this deranged killer spreading absurd theories about the American monarchy and threatening to murder more of us unless we do what he says.

One felt all the old emotions. Who does he think he is, and who does he think we are?

One of the crucial issues of this election is, Which candidate fundamentally gets the evil represented by this man? Which of these two guys understands it deep in his gut - not just in his brain or in his policy statements, but who feels it so deep in his soul that it consumes him?

It's quite clear from the polls that most Americans fundamentally think Bush does get this. Last March, Americans preferred Bush over Kerry in fighting terrorism by 60 percent to 33 percent, according to the Gallup Poll. Now, after a furious campaign and months of criticism, that number is unchanged. Bush is untouched on this issue.

Bush's response yesterday to the video was exactly right. He said we would not be intimidated. He tried to take the video out of the realm of crass politics by mentioning Kerry by name and assuring the country that he was sure Kerry agreed with him.

Kerry did say that we are all united in the fight against bin Laden, but he just couldn't help himself. His first instinct was to get political.

On Milwaukee television, he used the video as an occasion to attack the president: "He didn't choose to use American forces to hunt down Osama bin Laden. He outsourced the job." Kerry continued with a little riff from his stump speech, "I am absolutely confident I have the ability to make America safer."

Even in this shocking moment, this echo of Sept. 11, Kerry saw his political opportunities and he took 'em. There's such a thing as being so nakedly ambitious that you offend the people you hope to impress.

But politics has shaped Kerry's approach to this whole issue. Back in December 2001, when bin Laden was apparently hiding in Tora Bora, Kerry supported the strategy of using Afghans to hunt him down. He told Larry King that our strategy "is having its impact, and it is the best way to protect our troops and sort of minimalize the proximity, if you will. I think we have been doing this pretty effectively, and we should continue to do it that way."

But then the political wind shifted, and Kerry recalculated. Now Kerry calls the strategy he supported "outsourcing." When we rely on allies everywhere else around the world, that's multilateral cooperation, but when Bush does it in Afghanistan, it's "outsourcing." In Iraq, Kerry supports using local troops to chase insurgents, but in Afghanistan he is in post hoc opposition.

This is why Kerry is not cleaning Bush's clock in this election. Many people are not sure that he gets the fundamental moral confrontation. Many people are not sure he feels it, or feels anything. Since he joined the Senate, what cause has he taken a political risk for? Has he devoted himself selflessly and passionately to any movement larger than himself?

We are revealed by what we hate. When it comes to Osama bin Laden, Kerry hasn't revealed whatever it is that lies inside.

Walter Cronkite thinks that Karl Rove may be behind the surfacing of yesterday's broadcast of the videotaped message by Osama bin Laden.

I was wondering when the first shot would come at Rove and who would fire it. It took a little longer than I thought.

Ah, leave it to Walter to provide some comic relief for the very tense weekend.

The race between John Kerry and George W. Bush is tight in Ohio, but Bush maintains a slight lead of three percentage points.