Debates Over, Campaigns Turn to Turnout

"If anything, there's a little tail wind for Kerry coming out of the debates," said pollster Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. "Just as there was a little tail wind for Bush in August. But when would you rather have a little tail wind, in August or in mid-October?"

Campaigning in a dwindling number of battleground states, both Bush and Kerry will try to energize their political base with red-meat attacks, even as they keep reaching out for undecided voters.

"There is a small number out there to fight for. Neither guy at this point has totally closed the sale," said Bruce Buchanan, a political science professor at the University of Texas.

Kerry will build on his debate performances by emphasizing differences between himself and Bush on taxes, Social Security, health care, abortion rights, stem cell research and Supreme Court appointees, advisers said.

Bush and his surrogates will continue to paint Kerry as indecisive, despite his self-assured debate performance, and on the "far left bank" of American politics, as Bush charged in the final debate.

Republicans hope to both fire up their troops with such attacks and to continue to sow doubts about Kerry, perhaps in hopes of persuading fence-sitters to stay home rather than going to the polls and voting for the Democrat.

Undecided voters usually break for the challenger by two or three to one.

Democrats suggest any attempt, no matter how indirect, to get certain voters to stay home as part of a get-out-the-vote effort is doomed to fail.

"Every bit of evidence in this campaign is that the country is intensely interested in this election," said Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. "People are following it very closely, they're taking in enormous amounts of information, they're treating it very seriously. So I think betting on keeping people home is not a good bet, and not a particularly good approach."

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-getting-out-the-vote,0,2704691.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

I would like to see Democrats turn out EARLY to the polls so that, when they run out of ballots, we won't get stung.

I predict Kerry: 50% (52% w/o Nader and disenfranchisement), Bush: 49%, Nader + others: 1% (many indepedents say they will probably go Kerry if he needs it to win).

Just a hunch, but I'm thinking about Democratic intensity and retrospective voting, which should put Kerry JUST over the top.