May 21

The AP has an intriguing story tonight saying that John Kerry is considering delaying accepting the Democratic nomination because of the potential implications for fundraising and expenditure.

According to the Washington Post, though, Kerry raised nearly twice as much as Bush in April. Total spending in this year's political campaigns - presidential and congressional - could reach $3bn, Bloomberg reports.

The Bush team, meanwhile, is planning to launch a new TV ad campaign attacking Kerry's stance on the patriot act, USA Today reports.

With yet more stories about John McCain and the Democratic ticket, Knight-Ridder's Washington Bureau has a piece on the extent to which the southwest is in play.

The key battleground state at the moment, though, still looks like it will be Ohio, although both sides are also putting resources into Wisconsin.

May 18

The Bush-Cheney team are closely monitoring the President's recent slippage in poll numbers, with strategist Matthew Dowd telling the Washington Times:

"If his approval numbers move above 50, it's very difficult to lose. If his numbers move below 40, it's very difficult to win. Those are facts."

The Boston Globe, meanwhile, reports that an increasing number of college professors are contibuting to the Kerry campaign. You would expect the academic constituency to be leaning towards Kerry anyway, but the Globe reports that:

"Through the end of March, Kerry had received $1.32 million from employees of four-year colleges, compared with Bush's $512,000, according to data compiled for The Boston Globe by Dwight L. Morris & Associates, a Virginia-based consulting firm. Their combined total was nearly triple the $667,000 that Bush and Gore collected over a longer period before the last presidential election."

As the candidates continue to jostle over definition in front of an apparently limited universe of decisive voters, for example in Arizona, USA Today has an analysis that shows Bush leading in terms of negative ad spending, while CNN.com has a piece on the increasing migration of negative political ads to the online arena.

You can also compare the web traffic for John Kerry's web site against George W Bush's through Alexa.
(Thanks to Steven Clift's Democracy Online list).

In Cannes, Michael Moore's new movie Fahrenheit 911 had its expected controversial premiere. Here's what the Washington Post had to say:

"What's remarkable here isn't Moore's political animosity or ticklish wit. It's the well-argued, heartfelt power of his persuasion. Even though there are many things here that we have already learned, Moore puts it all together. It's a look back that feels like a new gaze forward."