Even een stukje geknipt en geplakt van ABC News, dat een intern memo van de Bush-Cheney-campagne heeft weten te onderscheppen. Het memo is door Republikeins campagnestrateeg Matt Dowd geschreven en werpt een licht op de situatie waarin Bush zich verkiezingstechnisch in verkeert.
Over de peilingen: "One major reason why President Bush's approval numbers have had such lasting power is that a majority of the public sees this President as honest and trustworthy, a strong leader, and believes that he cares about them. A second important reason for the sustained nature of these positive numbers in the wake of consistent negative media coverage concerning Iraq and the economy is that the public sees the president as presenting a clear and positive message on dealing with the public's concerns."
Over de spannende verkiezingen: "Though at this time this is good news for a campaign headed into an election year, this race is likely to be very tight and go down to the wire. The country is very evenly divided, and with Democratic partisans lined up solidly against President Bush, this race will stay very close."
Een waarschuwing van Dowd: "First, this is just the nature of a divided and polarized electorate. Second, once the Democratic nominee is all but assured, that person will receive a deluge of positive press at least for a couple of weeks, and this will temporarily be reflected in public opinion polls."
gepubliceerd door Marc op donderdag, november 06, 2003 #
