October 22

Another Texas-Massachussets confrontation is averted.

The latest poll shows a dead-heat, with indications are that both candidates are now actively targeting just 17 per cent of registered voters, and even a smost attention focuses on Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, the smaller swing states cannot be discounted as part of an overall electoral strategy.

High early-voting numbers in Colorado.

October 21

Well well...! Who would believe it?

Best quote of the night? - "I feel like a 6-year-old who just watched his dog get hit by a car," said Paul Avvento, 19, from Wantagh, Long Island. "Everything I've always known to be right has been proven wrong".

The Houston Astros play the St Louis Cardinals tonight for the National League Championship and the right to meet the Red Sox in Game One of the World Series at Fenway Park on Saturday.

A couple of political angles: If the Astros win tonight, it will be the first time ever in a presidential election year that the teams contesting the World Series have come from the two candidates' home states.

Also, any Kerry "bounce" from last night might turn out to be short-lived as it has re-opened the whole debate about exactly how much of a Red Sox fan he really is...

There's even a group, "Red Sox Fans For Truth", dedicated to exposing Kerry's "long pattern of deception regarding his supposed love of the Boston Red Sox".

On the subject of gaffes and back-offs, meanwhile, Kerry's wife continues to unnerve Democrat strategists...

Back to substantive matters, and Dan Froomkin in the Washington Post points to the latest Pew study that shows, as he says:

"..45 percent [of Americans] saying the Iraq war has helped the war against terrorism and 40 percent saying it has hurt. Eight months ago, the margin was 62-28. The Pew poll also shows Kerry and Bush in a dead heat - and shows Bush's approval rating at 44 percent."

The Tampa Tribune, which has endorsed a Republican for President in every election bar one since 1952, says - in a reasoned editorial - that it is unable to give its backing to either candidate this time; while in the Chicago Tribune - which has backed the GOP candidate in each election since 1872 - Don Wycliff explains the endorsement process and readers' reaction to their backing for Bush.

Elsewhere, Editor and Publisher magazine looks at what has been missing in newspaper endorsements.

There's a nice piece in the Christian Science Monitor about the influence of political movies and documentaries, while the New York Times reports that the stock price of Sinclair Broadcast has recovered after its slight re-think over the proposed John Kerry documentary.

Finally, as former President Bill Clinton gets ready to go on the stump, something to keep an eye will be numbers of newly-registered voters - particularly in key midwestern states.

October 20

At risk of drawing too obvious a parallel, it seems much may be learned about the nature of this election campaign from what happens in The Bronx this evening.

John Kerry's Boston Red Sox aim to come from behind to snatch a dramatic and truly unprecedented victory against the New York Yankees.

The Yankees, to some nothing less than the "evil empire", are baseball's most succesful franchise, and also its richest; able to spend whatever it takes to achieve the ultimate prize, and certain to face a wholesale restructuring of their personnel if they choke tonight.

The Sox, on the other hand, are without a doubt the favourites of everyone who isn't a Yankee fan; the perpetually-underachieving moral conscience, almost, of a sport that has endured many slurs and attacks in recent years, but yet still represents everything that is potentially pure and true about America's soul.

We shall see....

In the real world, meanwhile, the latest ABC News poll puts the Yankees, sorry, President Bush, ahead by five points. As ABC points out, though:

"The vast majority of first-timers — 82 percent — are under age 30. And whether it's their first time at the polls or not, young voters currently are Kerry's best age group, the only one in which he wins majority support.

"New voters also are less likely to be Republicans (27 percent, compared with 36 percent of repeat voters) and more apt to be liberals (28 percent vs. 17 percent). There are also twice as many minorities among voting novices; one in four is black or Hispanic."

Will it be enough to make a difference come polling day?

Or, indeed, come polling day, will the whole nation still be in court?

October 18

Voting, and thus voting-related anxiety, began in Florida today, while all indications are the ad war is likely to get even more intense as the campaign enters the final stretch.

Other states where early voting has begun include Texas and Colorado, as well as the key states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Andrew Sullivan makes a good point in his Sunday Times column yesterday, on how most mainstream opinion polls - the ones that consistently show Bush just edging Kerry by a handful of points - are conducted by phone, but using exclusively residential landlines. His point is that there may well be a nexus of younger, likely voters out there who exclusively use cellphones and as a result aren't being factored into the ongoing poll numbers.

The question of course, is just how likely are they to vote, and for whom?

Despite still being behind in the polls after a clean sweep of the debates, Kerry continues to pick up more newspaper endorsements, for whatever they're worth these days.

Howard Fineman in Newsweek also points out that the president's approval rating has now slipped to 47 per cent.

Meanwhile, here's a completely unscientific poll which is probably just as accurate as any other poll of 23 people you're likely to see...

And, has everyone forgotten that whole "oxygen of publicity" thing?

Seriously, though, there's a nice piece in the New Yorker taking a look at Mark Halperin, founder of ABC News's The Note and described by Mary Matalin as "the insider's insider's insider".

And talking of making the audience active participants... this should be fun.

Finally, although it's a couple of days old, this is the first chance we've had to point folks to the by now infamous exchange between Jon Stewart and Tucker Carlson on CNN's Crossfire. Enjoy.