Kerry Takes Early Lead in Newspaper Endorsements (washingtonpost.com) By Brian Faler and Jo Becker

This just in: John F. Kerry popular with editorial writers.

The Democratic presidential nominee has jumped out to an early lead in the race for newspaper endorsements, especially from those in the all-important swing states.

Kerry has won the support of nine papers in closely contested states, while four are backing President Bush. Both of Philadelphia’s major newspapers — the Inquirer and the Daily News — have endorsed Kerry. So has the Oregonian, which backed Bush in 2000. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Detroit Free Press, the Daily Star in Tucson, the Portland Press Herald in Maine and both of the big papers in Seattle — the Times and the Post-Intelligencer — have announced their support for Kerry.

Daily Endorsement Tally By Greg Mitchell

Total Pro-Kerry Daily Circ: 2,534,377 [11 papers]
Total Pro-Bush Daily Circ: 637,187 [8 papers]

This site compiles newspaper editorial endorsements of the candidates, with figures for circulation and who each paper endorsed in 2000. Three of the papers that now endorse Kerry endorsed Bush in 2000.

Strangely, they don’t include Bush’s hometown paper. mjh

The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda.

Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry, based not only on the things that Bush has delivered, but also on the vision of a return to normality that Kerry says our country needs.

[Thanks for the leads from Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire]

2004 Presidential Electoral College Predictions

Currently, Bush’s probability of winning the electoral college is 44.955%. The probability of an electoral college tie is 1.394%. Kerry wins with probability 53.651%. [The site is updated hourly!. See page for details.]

The site above uses data from the site below:

2.004k.com: Polling Data for 2004 Elections: By State

Electoral Votes

Needed to Win: 270 Electoral Votes

All states (based on most-current poll only):
Bush = 266
Kerry = 268
Tied = 4

Solid states (most-current poll is beyond statistical Margin of Error):
Bush = 149
Kerry = 185

Number of swing states (most-current poll is within Margin of Error): 19
11 swing states voted for Bush in 2000
8 swing states voted for Gore in 2000

Checking the Facts, in Advance By PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York Times

It’s not hard to predict what President Bush, who sounds increasingly desperate, will say tomorrow. Here are eight lies or distortions you’ll hear, and the truth about each:

[see for yourself]

By singling out Mr. Bush’s lies and misrepresentations, am I saying that Mr. Kerry isn’t equally at fault? Yes.

Mr. Kerry sometimes uses verbal shorthand that offers nitpickers things to complain about. He talks of 1.6 million lost jobs; that’s the private-sector loss, partly offset by increased government employment. But the job record is indeed awful. He talks of the $200 billion cost of the Iraq war; actual spending is only $120 billion so far. But nobody doubts that the war will cost at least another $80 billion. The point is that Mr. Kerry can, at most, be accused of using loose language; the thrust of his statements is correct.

Mr. Bush’s statements, on the other hand, are fundamentally dishonest. He is insisting that black is white, and that failure is success. Journalists who play it safe by spending equal time exposing his lies and parsing Mr. Kerry’s choice of words are betraying their readers.

The Daily Howler

It’s clear that Bush is now moving to paint Kerry as a Big Frightening Liberal. Will Bush dare to say, one more time, that the National Journal named Kerry the senate’s top liberal? Again, for those who care to know, here is the Journal’s list of the most liberal senators, based on lifetime voting:

National Journal: Most liberal senators, lifetime voting
1. Mark Dayton, D-Minn.
2. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md.
3. Jack Reed, D-R.I.
4. Jon Corzine, D-N.J.
5. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
6. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.
7. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa
8. Richard Durbin, D-Ill.
9. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.
10. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt

In Debate II, Bush stated, two separate times, that the Journal named Kerry “the most liberal senator of all.” Will he make this tortured claim again? …

Yes, liberal bias is easy to spot—if you’re determined to find it. And ever since Nixon helped establish the concept, Republicans have used the iconic complaint as a way to explain away every bad story.

Sign Up to Volunteer – New Voters Project

We did it! We wanted to register 22,000 young people in New Mexico, and we registered over 25,000 new voters!

The New Voters Project has field operations in dozens of campuses and communities in six states.

# Colorado
# Iowa
# Nevada
# New Mexico
# Oregon
# Wisconsin
# Arizona

There are a lot of ways you can make sure that young people are out in force November 2. It could be as simple as putting up ten posters on how people can find their polling locations or taking five friends to the polls on Election Day. Here in New Mexico, our on-the-ground staff will be putting together some fun events to call other young people in the state, or even go knock on their doors on Halloween weekend. There are a lot of opportunities to help with simple office activities as well.

Just let us know you’d like to help out and what types of activities you’re most interested in. We’ll get in touch to let you know the what, where, and when.

Mark Green: Name The October Surprise

I invite readers to submit entries to the “Name the October Surprise” contest by answering this question: “What do you think is a possible October Surprise that Bush will announce in order to try to win a close election?”

This contest emerges out of history — political history and Bush history. …

The goal is to anticipate particular “surprises” in the hope, however small, that Bushies may shy away from what’s widely anticipated because it reeks of a political ploy. That is, I believe in preventive wars politically, not militarily.

Is this contest cynical? No, just realistic. A governing elite which seems to embody Mark Twain’s axiom that “a lie gets halfway around the world before truth puts on her boots” should be presumed capable of saying or doing almost anything to hold onto power. As Eric Alterman and I wrote in The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America, the President straight-facedly declares that there’s no proof of global warming, that the jury is out on evolution, that the recession began under Clinton (it started in March, 2001), that there were an adequate 60 stems cells lines for research (when there were 11), that Saddam = al Qaeda – and now that a vote for Kerry is a vote for a terrorist attack on the U.S. Such a record requires vigilant voters to begin a conversation about what the most messianic, radical, divisive and dissembling president of the modern era could do to win re-election.

Pro-Bush Puffery on Economy, Medicare FactCheck.org

New ad claims Bush inherited an economy “already in recession” and that 41 million seniors “now have access to lower cost prescriptions.” Wrong on both counts.

Summary

The ad by the pro-Bush group Progress for America Voter Fund claims the economy was already in a recession when Bush took office, but the National Bureau of Economic Research (which dates business cycles) says the recession actually began in March 2001, after Bush took office in January.

The facts also get stretched when the ad claims “41 million seniors now have access to lower cost prescriptions (emphasis added).” Bush’s new prescription drug benefit will cover seniors on Medicare for an extra premium of about $35 a month, but not until 2006. Even the currently available drug discount cards have been used much less than expected. Current enrollment is less than 5 million. [Analysis …]