Turning point

[DanimalBr]

The way I see it, the lead in this race changed hands seven times.   Bush entered 2004 with a pretty high approval rating and heavily favored to be re-elected as he lead big over the guy who was thought to be the Dem nominee at that time, Howard Dean.  John Kerry pulled off a surprise win in the Iowa Caucuses and then the New Hampshier primary and from there on out the rest of the Democrat Primaries were a joke as one by one the other candidates fell off.  During all of Feburary and most of March, Kerry enjoyed domination of the primaries and good press.  While at that time Bush was being questioned about WMDs in Iraq due to a David Kay report.  In several Polls, Kerry took a substansial lead during that time and this forced the Bush team to start campaigning earlier than they probably were planning to.  When the primaries were over, Kerry's positive momentum slowly started to dwindle.  Bush regained the lead in April.  A key point there was at a town hall when Kerry was questioned about remarks he made about foriegn leaders who wanted to see him win.  He replied by saying "That's none of your business."  This got Kerry some bad press and hurt him in the polls.  In late April/early May, Kerry took the lead back as the focus of negative attention went back to Bush.  Richard Clarke and Bob Woodward came out with two anti-Bush books that got a lot of press.  Also at this time, violence in Iraq heated up to a daily struggle and the Iraq prision began to dominate the news headlines.  Bush's approval dropped significantly and this war probably the bleakest month for Bush during the campaign.  In June, former President Reagan died and this took a lot of attention off of Iraq and helped Bush regain a brief lead in the polls again.  But that was short lived as in early July, Kerry got a bump with his selection of John Edwards as his VP and he regained the lead in the polls.  This lead lasted the rest of the summer with the Democrat convention.  But although he had the lead, there were some troubling signs for Kerry in the polls as well.  Kerry got virtually no bounce after his convention and was unable to pull way ahead of Bush, which goes against history.  More troubles contiued for Kerry as the Swift Boat ads came out with a bunch of really damaging ads in August.  What little lead Kerry had diminished during August as the people began digesting these ads.  The Bush team took advantage of this and came out with a very sucessful contention at the end of August and surged to the biggest lead that either candidate had this whole campaign.  Bush enjoyed surging numbers the entire month of September as some polls even had his lead double digits.  The first debate was Bush's chance to put the campaign out of reach for Kerry.  But a very poor showing by Bush got Kerry back in the game.  In the first week of October, polls show Bush's huge lead evaporate to a dead heat.  But the next two debates were better showings for Bush as he was able stop the bleading he was suffering from the 1st debate and regain about a 2-3 point lead on average.  ANd that's where it stayed for the rest of the campaign.