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In a September 17th column in Salon magazine (hidden behind a subscription firewall) political columnist and author Joe Conason writes that “there is no reason to give up, regardless of any flaws in the Kerry-Edwards campaign or the Bush-Cheney convention bounce.” That ‘bounce’ has fallen flat, according to Conason, returning the presidential race to a virtual dead heat, according to several new polls.
The new Harris Interactive/Wall Street Journal poll, completed on September 13th, shows Kerry with 48 percent, Bush with 47 percent and Ralph Nader with 2 percent, an almost identical result to the Harris poll taken before the Republican Convention, when Kerry was ahead by 1 point.
Late last week, the Economist released a new YouGov poll, which employs online technology developed by a British survey firm, and found Bush ahead of Kerry by a single point, 47 to 46. “To the magazine’s editors this represents an ‘impressive’ result for Bush,” writes Conason, “because more than 56 percent of the voters polled by YouGov say they are ‘dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time’.”
Democracy Corps, run by James Carville and Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, completed a new poll of 1,003 voters on September 14th, which also showed Bush one point ahead, 49 to 48 percent. Greenberg’s poll includes lots of data suggesting that voters want a new direction — and that independents, in particular, are deeply dissatisfied with Bush.
The latest survey by Investor’s Business Daily and the Christian Science Monitor, completed September 12th, actually shows Kerry ahead by two points among registered voters and tied with Bush among ‘likely’ voters. Conason suggests that “for a useful discussion of this distinction and why it may not be meaningful at this stage” that readers consult Ruy Teixeira’s Donkey Rising blog, “which provides smart, professional and duly skeptical analysis of media polls.”
Too often, the left tends to adopt a defeatist ‘sky is falling’ attitude at the first hint of trouble allegedly impacting on the viability of the more progressive party, or candidate, running in a federal, provincial / state, or municipal election, seeming to give up the cause and awarding the win in the early going to the corporatist, right-wing candidate or party.
With 48 days to go, though, before Presidential election day in the United States, to believe that the ‘game is over’ and that Bush is all but a shoo-in for a second term in office would be, at best, wrong-headed and just plain asinine. As one-time New York Yankees coach Yogi Berra put it so cogently oh so many years ago, “It ain’t over ’til its over.”

Earlier this year, KPMG released its annual ranking of Canada’s most respected corporations, the silver medal awarded to WestJet, Canada’s western-based, national, privately owned airline. “Today, corporate reputation matters more than ever,” said KPMG partner Bill Dillabough in announcing the results. “We at KPMG are proud to draw attention to the importance of respect and integrity in the business world.”
Canadian Auto Workers’ Jim Stanford wonders how it is that a company …

with revelations (not yet proven in court) that it snooped confidential information on Jetsgo (its low-cost competitor), in addition to hacking similar data from Air Canada … with first-half profits down by half, and the profit margin (as a share of revenue) at its lowest ever … paying its workers sub-average wages and offering no pension plan …

could possibly have been provided with a much sought after designation by one of the world’s most prestigious corporate advisers? We wonder, too.

With less than 50 days to the U.S. election and some polls reporting a 10-point lead over John Kerry, George W Bush’s re-election as President looks a breeze. Despite his dodgy past, he has successfully sold himself as a ‘hero’ War President and defender of traditional U.S. values. How did he do it? Bush’s people have run riot over Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry’s record, so what about the President’s?

President Bush under fire

Although Time magazine last week reported a double-digit lead for incumbent President George W. Bush — the so-called ‘post convention bounce’ — Newsweek will publish a story this week that shows Bush’s double-digit lead has narrowed to six points following revelations made public in the last few days of cocaine use by the President while vacationing at Camp David, deliberate fudging by the President of his military service in the National Guard, the right-to-life President’s alleged assistance in helping a girlfriend secure an abortion in the 1970s, and the President’s close ties to the bin Laden family.
In a story published yesterday in Great Britain’s Glasgow Sunday Herald, Investigations Editor Neil Mackay explores “Bush’s charge sheet for alleged wrongdoing — sex, drugs, cowardice, cruelty; [as well as other of] his alleged failings and foibles [which] are imperial in stature.”

Bush has wrapped himself in the Stars and Stripes since the horror of Sept. 11. His presidency has pushed a simple message: America is in danger and he’s the man to keep the people safe; he’ll take the fight against the terrorists abroad and he’s proud of U.S. troops.
If that is the case, why is Bush mired in a scandal about his Vietnam-era service, or lack of, with fresh allegations that he was able to sneak out of serving his country overseas because his daddy was famous, powerful and rolling in cash?
Being proved to be a little yellow-bellied about fighting in Vietnam would be mere collateral damage to the Bush campaign compared to the all-out nuclear holocaust which would ensue if the allegations made about Dubya’s cocaine use and abortion-fixing, in biographer and muck-raker Kitty Kelly’s forthcoming book on the Bush family, stand up to scrutiny.
Since his days in Yale, Bush has been strongly anti-intellectual and rampantly pro-business. Until the age of 30, he didn’t really do very much of anything, but by 1977 he started to use his family’s powerful connections to raise money for an oil business.
The most questionable business venture of Bush’s oil career came while he was with the Harken Energy Corporation. Harken made investments in the Middle East in the run-up to the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam. At the time, Bush Sr was the 41st President of the USA and Bush Jr was on the board of Harken. Harken took a pasting on the stockmarket. In June 1990, Harken consultants said only ‘ drastic action’ could save the company. Bush sold his entire stock in Harken before information about the dire state of the company was known publicly — despite a legal requirement on him to notify the Securities Exchange Commission …
When governor of Texas between 1995 and 2000, Bush presided over more than 120 executions — that accounts for about a third of the executions in the entire USA during the same period. Bush objected to a bill to stop the state executing people with mental problems. He also vetoed a unanimous bill by the Texas legislature requiring the appointment of a lawyer to an accused within 20 days.

Neil Mackay asks a series of critical questions, deserving of answers before the American people go to the polls on November 2nd: “Is President George W Bush, who weaves a narrative about himself as a man of God, actually a charlatan? Is he really a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Is his faith a sham? Is he more bad boy than born again? More playboy than penitent?”
These are just a few of the issues in debate, as the American people and the world community await answers about Bush’s shrouded past.