Chris Suellentrop of Slate, recorded this:
"PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.-'I want you to stand, raise your right hands,' and recite 'the Bush Pledge,' said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: 'I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States.' "
Apparently now out of conventional wisdom stories, The New York Times' Todd Purdum tries a different tack. All the rancor might be a good thing.
"WASHINGTON - Somewhere along the way between the big money and the big lies, the Swift Boat slash attacks and the farrago of "Fahrenheit 9/11," a conventional wisdom congealed that this was an awful campaign: too much heat, too little light, so much wrong, not enough right. It was long, costly, raw and nasty - and that means no good.
Oh, really?
Then why is voter turnout projected to be at its highest in at least 12 years, and perhaps in 36? Why are millions of first-time registrants expected to flock to the polls Tuesday, or cast absentee ballots or vote early? Why have both candidates raised large amounts of small donations, often over the Internet? Why are Republicans vowing to out-knock Democrats in the door-to-door ground game that Democrats pioneered?"
Our own Eric Lacitis spent time in Kennewick and a Seattle neighborhood and draws us portraits of voters red and blue. They don't seem all that different.
Republicans are nervous that President Bush doesn't have a bigger lead going into election day. Who's to blame? The media, of course.
"Buck and Nichols say the election is much too close. Bush should be trouncing John Kerry. Something is not quite right, and like many of their fellow Republicans, they share the belief that the media have played a role by skewing coverage in Kerry's favor.
For unsettled Republican voters in closely contested states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Hampshire, the last leg of the presidential contest at times has been more of a group-therapy session than a victory march.
In turning out by the thousands at airports, in stadiums, on farms and along roadsides - some waiting four or five hours for a chance to spend 40 minutes listening to the president - many Republican loyalists are seeking the strength and comfort that large numbers often bring.
Bush's visits are ticketed events overseen by local Republican officials."
Expect a big turnout in King County, says Dean Logan, head of King County elections.
Underdogs.
"Each election year, people like Lord, members of a Quixotic clan who can't rely on campaign funding, party backing or name recognition, are somehow moved to file their candidacies. With virtually no shot at winning and with varying combinations of vanity and principle, they run."
Quixotic clan. Nice phrase.
Suellentrop has a fine piece of analysis about President Bush's strategy to hold on to everything from 2000, plus get the 4 million evangelicals who allegedly didn't vote last time.
The nut:
"For the 2004 election, Rove's static political analysis was that appealing to the 4 million evangelicals who didn't vote in 2000 would bring President Bush a decisive re-election victory. Bush's campaign - and his presidency - have appealed almost entirely to the base of the Republican Party. In a static world, that strategy makes sense: Consolidate the support you received last time, and then find new conservative voters who weren't motivated to turn out four years ago, whether because of the late-breaking news of Bush's DUI arrest or because they weren't convinced of Bush's conservative bona fides. But Rove may have missed the dynamic analysis: the effect that such a strategy would have on the rest of the nonvoting public."
By trying to appeal to those 4 million non voters, in other words, Bush got himself in trouble with some of the 96 million other people who didn't vote in 2000.
But The Note seems to think Bush is on his way, so maybe not.
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