The reports that the US let a big explosives cache slip away seems to be overblown; the coverage in the last few days assumed that the stuff went AWOL recently. However, it seems that the US never did have custody of it, as it had already been lifted by the time they got there last March. For at least a news cycle, this was looking like a big blessing to Kerry, who was using it in his stump speech. Now it seems to be only a small blessing, but the damage from the initial reports may have given Kerry a fraction of a percent of the vote.
One interesting story that is starting to come out is that Republicans are making inroads into the black vote; yes, it's moving up from 90-10 Democratic to 85-15, but every five points the Republicans add puts an extra percentage to their overall margin of victory. Get Religion looks at GOP efforts to woo blacks in Florida.
Scary news; Rehnquist has thyroid cancer. The good news is that it's very treatable, even if they have to yank the thyroid to do it. Eileen's mom is a survivor of thyroid cancer, so I've seen that it can be done; they often have to go on a hormone-replacement drug called Synthroid to keep the body from over-stimulating a non-existent thyroid. Rehnquist should be able to hang in there long enough for the Republicans to secure a filibuster-resistant Senate for his successor's nomination.
Check this out-Hawaii is in play. The initial poll that came out this weekend left me whomperjawed; I figured it had to be an outlier. Not quite; now there are two polls showing Bush winning a squeaker, and neither of them are done by Zogby.
I'm not in Florida to see how this is playing out on the ground, but Ron Zook got the hook at Florida earlier this week; he'll finish out the season. It appears that the Swamp Weasel is a strong possibility to come back to his old wetland haunts.
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