Onward to 2008!

[StevenNick]

What on earth? Nothing is clear absolutely nothing. Kerry's lead last month was fragile, as is Bush's lead today. Bush will climb into September but its not over. Not by a long shot. Gore was down in dozens of national and state polls this time last round and he bet Bush in the popular vote.

Yes, Gore was down at this point in the campaign in 2000.  The difference between then and now is that then it was Gore who was having the later convention to make up for some of his popular deficit.  This time around, Bush is not only up, he's up right before the start of the republican convention.

[StevenNick]

Am I the only one who's getting really tired of all everybody endlessly repeating the conventional wisdom that this election will necessarily be close.  It certainly could be, but the race could easily break one way or another between now and election day.  Honestly, I think Bush will open up a wider lead between now and the election.  I don't think the swift vets story is going to go away any time soon, the economy is growing, Bush's approval ratings are on a rebound, and the Bush campaign has a much better organization than the Kerry campaign.  All that put together suggests to me that Bush has a shot of winning this election by a much wider than expected margin--maybe 8 to 10 points.

Of course, I could be way, way, way off.