Mind Poison

Today marks the beginning of the endgame for the 2004 presidential election. This morning, at 8:30am, the BLS released the last employment situation report before the election. Bush supporters had placed high hopes on this report finally showing strong job growth, especially because the BLS was due to issue a revision to the data for the year leading up to March 2004. The Bush administration had been expecting an upward revision of about 300,000 to 400,000 jobs. This jobs report didn't get close to fulfilling their hopes, as the upward revision is smaller than forecasted (and smaller than the average upward revision in past years), this month's job growth was weak (96,000), and last month's was revised downward. A good news strikeout.

The candidates are going to have to react quickly, because their second debate is tonight. I don't know how people weigh the different debates, but I imagine the earlier ones are probably more important to people. By the third, they've probably seen what they were watching to see, so unless someone makes a major mistake, it's probably the least important. We'll see if Bush can reverse last thursday's performance, and if Kerry can turn in a similarly strong one. By tonight, we should have a better picture of where the election is going.

By the way, this story is hard to believe, exactly the sort of nonsense that Salon mass produces. The photo is hard to argue with, but who knows? They cite Bush's "let me finish!" statement as evidence, but I don't see why he couldn't have been responding to Jim Lehrer looking like he was about to turn it over to Kerry, which is what I assumed at the time. I don't see the mainstream media picking up on this story anytime soon. Still, I'll be watching the space between Bush's shoulder blades with interest tonight. (By the way, I got that link from electoral-vote.com, so please don't think I actually read Salon)