From the Murdoch press no less
Andrew Sullivan: Floundering Bush is running out of ways to win
Read more In Washington some of the icons are well known to the public at large, and some retain almost guru-like status among the cognoscenti and are content to have their fame restricted to a few blocks around the White House. One such nerdy eminence is Charlie Cook, of the wonkish but often indispensable National Journal.
If you’re an American reporter and you need to find someone to give you a quote to back up a psephological assertion, Charlie’s your man. He knows polls and districts and congressional races the way a sea-fisherman knows tides and currents and shoals. And so in a relatively becalmed August, the big news was that Cook made a simple call on the presidential race. He says the election is John Kerry’s to lose.
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When the race is still relatively close, you’d be foolish to rule anything out now. But if Bush maintains his current posture and strategy, it’s only a matter of time before he follows his dad into first-term oblivion. It’s up to him to show us whether he’s capable of pulling off a real political gamble.