On money, message and veep

Yes, I'm still alive but have been busy and so took a couple days off from this blog.

However, it's been a while since we've looked at the status of the Presidential race and the Kerry campaign.

Here are my observations in three categories:

Money:

1. In early March, Kerry was at a 55-1 money disadvantage now he is at a 3-1 disadvantage over Bush.
2. Bush has spent over half of his advertising budget, yet polling of the so called "battleground states" is inconclusive. There has been some tightening in states where Kerry had built up a lead after his primary romp but beyond that, the race seems to have been frozen for the last two months.
3. Kerry will likely raise close to $120 million by July, nearly half of that coming from online donors, effectively erasing any Bush money advantage between now and the primaries.

Message:

1. Jobs, healthcare, and to quote George W. from 2000 "a more humble foreign policy" are the issues Kerry is running on. The mainstream media has essentially ignored the first two (or has conflated them with mini-scandals about S.U.V.'s and Teresa's tax returns) and has contended that there is little difference between what Kerry would do in Iraq and what Bush is already doing.

2. Some astute observers, like Ron Brownstein from the Los Angeles Times, have pointed out that, after feeling the political heat for months, Bush has moved to blunt Kerry's multilateral foreign policy message by courting the U.N. and in particular, putting responsibility for finding an interim government in the hands of the U.N.'s Lakdhar Brahimi. Few point out that this is still a far cry from what Kerry has called for: a large NATO troop presence that means France and Germany, too. And a special U.N. "High Commissioner" to take responsibility for all civilian authority away from Paul Bremer.

Veepstakes:

1. We here at ToughEnough.org have long said that unless we have verifiable proof that the Veep will not be Edwards than we will continue to put our bets on him.

2. We also think that all this talk of Vilsack, Gephardt and the rest is meant to make Edwards a surprise and that in fact the announcement will be delayed until the convention - otherwise, who would watch.