The polls are now showing a better sense of what's going on in the race, Gallup 52-45 and ARG 47-46 in Bush's favor. Over the weekend Prez Clinton had given a much discussed pep talk to Kerry about defining the race as many Democrats panicked about Newsweek's and Time's outlier polls.

John Kerry has now settled on his message "A stronger America begins at home" much like he settled on his primary message at the Iowa JJ___ dinner where he unveiled the Real Deal stump speech. This is Kerry's time where he brings unparalled focus and meets with groups of people so that they can talk to him and get a feel for him.

John Kerry is a good man, who has always fought for the right things. The Republicans and conservatives have taken on the mantle of Nixon and unleashed a fusilade of smears and lies. The message from them is basically, we know Bush is bad, but Kerry is even worse. If that were the case that Kerry was worse, then it would all be fair enough. But Kerry is a good man, who, all his life has fought for good things: for his country, to stop the vietnam war, as a prosecutor, setting up a rape counseling unit, against acid rain as a Lt Gov, for veterans as a senator, for government accountability, for safer communities, for young people, for a smart foreign policy, for small businesses (Kerry was a small biz owner and chair of Senate committee on small businesses)and the list goes on.

The Republicans have gone too far is smearing a good man and I think the public has reached a threshhold with the Bush team. I think people are going to demand accountability and an agenda from him. We are not electing a smearer-in-chief, or liar-in-chief, we are electing a commander-in-chief.

The frustration for many Democrats is that the smears have drowned out Kerry's message. This was not unexpected, August was going to be a bad month for Kerry, we all knew that--Kerry could not raise money so he had to conserve what he had, the Bush team had to spend all its remaining money on ads, and the Republican convention. But we got through August in good shape and it looks like at the end of the day, Bush will only get a 3-5% bounce from August.

Kerry has a chance to keep his message of hope, front and center, but there is too much going on and this election will probably depend on circumstancs beyond Kerry's control. There is the Iraq war, there is the issue of jobs and the economy, medicare and healthcare costs, Kelly Kilty's book about the Bush family and GWB using cocaine at Camp David, Bob Graham's book about the administration's cover up of Saudi involvement in 9-11, Moore's Farenheit 911 DVD release, a couple of Kerry movies coming out, CBS' 60 minutes interview with Barnes, the guy who got Bush into the Natl Guard, and there is rumored to be a major TV special in the works documenting Bush's missing year in the National Guard.

The way it looks, Kerry may just need to stay out of the way and not hurt himself and just let Bush implode. Kerry and Edwards need to remain optimistic and tough and trust the American public to reject the cynicism and fear mongering of Bush and his team. As St Paul says to Timothy, "God has not given to us the spirit of fear, but of power, love and of a sound mind."