Ohio and the state of the race

Iraq is a mess, Bush's approval numbers are sinking (46% in the latest Gallup, and 44% in the latest CBS and Pew polls) and today ARG came out with a new Ohio poll (there wasn't a previous one from them so no trend is available) showing Kerry ahead by 7 (49-42) even with Nader included. The best part is that the Ohio poll shows the following favorable/unfavorable ratings for Bush and Kerry:

Bush: favorable 43% unfavorable 52%
Kerry: favorable 44% unfavorable 36%

All those negative ads from Bush...See what they've done? This is shocking. I'm not sure how Bush wins Ohio now, even if they do capture Osama. The only way he wins Ohio is if Kerry shows up in an al-Qaeda training video.

I know it's early, but people know the President and he's going to have real trouble magically redefining himself before election day. It's amazing - the Bush team has made almost the identical mistakes the Dean team made. Advertise early, go negative on your opponents, blow all your money and then top it off by making yourself disliked.

The people in the media (ABC's The Note and assorted political pundits among them) who have spelled doom and gloom for Kerry and nothing but electoral strength and an undying admiration for the political/tactical skills of Team Bush should take a cold hard look at the realities inherent in this poll. For the Republicans to lose Ohio would be like the Democrats losing Illinois - it's hard to see where they'd make up the lost 20 electoral votes. Further more, if you are doing so badly that you lose Ohio (a state every Republican President who's even been elected has won) then it's unlikely you'd save yourself by picking up another industrial swing state like PA or MI.