Dean's World

The Presidential campaign is at a fever pitch as it continues on its second to last day.

There are now tons of news stories and links on it. Rather than do a zillion, here are some of the more notable ones. This will be UPDATED throughout the day:

--KERRY DIDN'T TAKE OUR ADVICE ON DUCT TAPE and probably wished he did now that his stepson came down with foot-in-mouth disease (is it genetic?):

October 31, 2004 — THIS campaign is ending just in time before someone gets hurt. John Kerry's stepson, Chris Heinz, 31, displayed his mother Teresa's famous lack of rhetorical restraint at a recent campaign event with a group of Wharton students. Philadelphia magazine reports: "Heinz accused Kerry's opponents - 'our enemies' - of making the race dirty. 'We didn't start out with negative ads calling George Bush a cokehead,' he said, before adding, 'I'll do it now.' Asked later about it, Heinz said, 'I have no evidence. He never sold me anything.'

--A Mason-Dixon Polling poll for MSNBC-Knight Ridder has good news for George Bush: he's ahead in some key battleground states.

--But a newspaper poll shows Kerry opening up a substantial lead in Minnesota.

--And the new emphasis on absentee or early balloting seems to have boosted Kerry in Iowa, where a Des Moines Register poll gives him the lead.

--Nationally, a Fox News poll now places the race at dead heat — yet another indication that the Get Out The Vote drives of both parties will determine the next President.

The presidential race is dead even among likely voters — 46 percent back both President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry, a new FOX News poll conducted Friday and Saturday finds. Independent candidate Ralph Nader receives one percent.

The Democratic challenger has a two-point edge among registered voters, receiving 47 percent to Bush's 45 percent (Nader receives one percent). The poll's margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.

In mid-October, Bush held a seven-point lead over Kerry among likely voters overall. Since then, independent voters have shifted from giving an 18-point lead Bush to giving a slim five-point edge to Kerry today.

In addition, Democrats are now backing Kerry at the same level of intensity as Republicans have backed Bush for the past several weeks. Previous surveys showed that Republicans were more likely to support Bush than the Democrats were to back Kerry.

--The GOP has demanded IDS of 37,000 voters in Milwakuee, Wisconsin — an early sign that election day this year could be unprecedented in the degree of partisan bitterness, mobilization and challenges.

--President Bush is being criticized by two famous Britsh figures.

(1) British Prime Minster Tony Blair may be out looking for duct tape after his wife issued a fairly broad-ranging critique on some of George Bush's policies:

CHERIE Blair has criticised the policies of the US President George W Bush, attacking his stance on terrorist prisoners and gay rights.

The Prime Minister's wife was condemned by supporters of the US President, after a speech to Harvard law students which contained a stinging rebuke to Bush, while on a lecture tour of the United States.

She attacked the manner in which the White House has dealt with the human rights of UK citizens detained at the US-run Camp X-Ray prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Blair said the decision by the US Supreme Court, fiercely opposed by Bush's government, to give legal protection to two of the Britons detained at the camp was "profoundly important" and a "significant victory for human rights and the international rule of law".

She took a sideswipe at Bush's record on gay rights, condemning the arrest of a homosexual couple in the President's home state of Texas, for defying a ban on gay sex. The US Supreme Court's decision to throw out the law, which had been backed by Bush, was a "model of judicial reasoning". Blair also called the US legal code an "outdated grandfather clock".

The controversial speech was seen as flying in the face of long-held tradition that British political figures, and those close to them, do not criticise other countries during foreign visits.

(2) The Queen is getting directly involved in pressing the White House to change an environmental policy due to personal observations.

The Queen has made a rare intervention in world politics to warn Tony Blair of her grave concerns over the White House's stance on global warming.

She is understood to have asked Downing Street to lobby the US after observing the alarming impact of Britain's changing weather on her estates at Balmoral in Scotland and Sandringham in Norfolk. The revelation gives an unusual glimpse into the mind of the monarch, who normally strives to stay above politics.

Further evidence of the Queen's views on global warming will be seen this week when she opens one of the most high-profile conferences ever staged in Europe on the issue. She is keen for this to be interpreted as a symbolic and political statement.

--At Halloween the winner of every election since 1980 has been predicted by which mask of the candidate sells the most. It's a close race even there — but Bush is ahead.

--GWB and John Kerry are now tied in a various polls, including Zogby's.

--NEW ZOGBY CELL PHONE POLL OF YOUNGER VOTERS: The theory is that polls don't get preferences of younger voters who use cell phones so John Zogby and Rock the Vote did a cell-phone poll finding a 15 percent edge for Kerry:

Polling firm Zogby International and partner Rock the Vote found Massachusetts Senator John Kerry leading President Bush 55% to 40% among 18-29 year-old likely voters in their first joint Rock the Vote Mobile political poll, conducted exclusively on mobile phones October 27 through 30, 2004. Independent Ralph Nader received 1.6%, while 4% remain undecided in the survey of 6,039 likely voters. The poll is centered on subscribers to the Rock the Vote Mobile (RTVMO) platform, a joint initiative of Rock the Vote and Motorola Inc. (for more information: http://www.rtvmo.com). The poll has margin of error of +/-1.2 percentage points.

The poll also found that only 2.3% of 18-29 year-old respondents said they did not plan to vote, and another .5% who were not sure if they would. The results of the survey are weighted for region, gender, and political party.

--The always lively Dave Pell says to watch the Packers-Redskins game — because the winner will tell you who's going to win on Tuesday. Click on the link for more details.(Rats! And I thought I had to VOTE!)

--The Washington Post reports a deluge of dirty tricks, a sign of our (sadly) changing political culture where the ONLY thing that matters is winning. Two quick excerpts:

As if things weren't complicated enough, here comes the dirt.

Registered voters who have been somehow unregistered. Democrats who suddenly find they've been re-registered as Republicans. A flier announcing that Election Day has been extended through Wednesday....

Dirty tricks are a staple of campaigns, but election officials say this year's could achieve new highs in numbers and new lows in scope, especially in key battleground states such as Florida and Ohio, where special-interest groups have poured in to influence the neck-and-neck race between President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry.

"In my 16 years as an election administrator, I've never seen anything like this," said Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections in Leon County, Fla. "I see it as an expression of a political culture that has evolved in the United States of win at any cost. It's not partisan, but it's just lie, cheat and steal, and ethics be damned."

Read the whole thing and weep (unless you believe any tactic is valid to elect a candidate of either party).