Dr. Potomac's Memo

Delightful numbers this morning. The ABCNews-Washington Post Poll has President Bush leading the junior Senator from Massachusetts by 48 to 43 percent which is a reversal of fortune in the past month. Additional good news can be found in what the public now views as the most important issues in the coming election: the war in Iraq and the economy are tied. (Gentle readers are reminded that in a recent post Dr. Potomac advised the Democrats to lay-off the Iraq issue as it tends to focus voters' minds on Bush's greatest strength and the Democrat Party's greatest weakness: national security. Fortunately, they ignored my advice. And why, pray tell, did Kerry use Ted Kennedy as his primary mouthpiece on this issue? How many caught Rep. Dana Rohrbacher's riposte to Kennedy's charge that Iraq was "George Bush's Vietnam"? "Perhaps," said the Congressman from Southern California, "but it isn't his Chappaquidick.")

The really wonderful news is that it is probably impossible for Kerry to undo the damage to his stature on national security issues. Kerry seems to have lost votes on both his right and left flanks and addressing one problem would tend to make the other worse. Doubts have been sown among swing voters who don't know much about Iraq or terrorism but know Bush is doing everything possible to keep the country safe while Kerry stands for... what, exactly? On national security, there are two things swing voters cannot tolerate: indecision and appeasement. Kerry seems firmly lodged between these two points.

The damage on his left flank is probably equally severe and more difficult to remedy without further alienating the right-ward edge of his coalition. The ABC-Post poll shows Nader doubling (!) his support in the past month from 3 to 6 percent. Dr. Potomac's educated guess is that this has much to do with Kerry's waffling on Iraq ("I was for it before I was against it, and now I'm for it but in a different way") which is not the way to endear oneself with the hard Left. The only way to get these Naderites back would be to try to scorch Bush on Iraq by calling for a precipitous withdrawal or similar foolishness further undercutting his standing with swing-voters (see above). The mother of all electoral catch-22s, and one that is likely to get worse as the economy recedes as an issue and voters become even more focused on the Iraq war.