Kerry 5, Bush 2

Smackdown, week 7

No bullet list this week. I've been to busy at work to collect a sufficient number of links to give good coverage of the weeks events.

This week continues the pattern of the last few weeks where Kerry is pretty much missing from the national news coverage (comparatively) while Bush is getting hammered by uncomfortable reports from every direction. Iraq continues to hammer at the perception of Bush's (and Republican's) strength in foreign policy (April was the worst month on record for American deaths and its barely half over) while the 9/11 hearings continue to undermine the image that Bush knows what he is doing about terrorism (or at least that he was head and shoulders above everyone before him). On the economic front there hasn't been any really bad news but there hasn't been any really good news that Rove could use to distract attention away from problems outside the United States.

And then came news that Bush is ratcheting back his advertising push after spending nearly $40 million on ads that have barely nicked Kerry's overall standing. The "huge" financial advantage that Bush allegedly has over Kerry appears to be disappearing. If Kerry's team has adopted the rope-a-dope strategy of taking the worst Bush could dish out early and still be standing at the end then they are to be applauding for pulling it off. Now Kerry is planning his own ad push that appears to be the first attempt from his campaign to go on the offensive. Here's hoping it works.