More “Ominosity” for the Dems

CBS News/New York Times has Bush up seven (49%-42%) and ABC News/Washington Post has Bush ahead nine (52%-43%).

The internals on the latter are even more brutal on Lurch than the last installment.

The economy: Bush +4

Iraq: Bush +16

Education: Bush +4

Taxes: Bush +10 (Nice to see that margin open up)

The war on terrorism: Bush +22

Supreme Court appointments: Bush +10 (That could have some down-ticket implications for more than a few Senate races)

Handling relations with other countries: (drumroll please) Bush +10

Health care: Kerry +3

“Helping the middle class”: Kerry +5 (Whatever the hell that is supposed to mean)

“Creating jobs”: Kerry +2 (How that’s different from “the economy” is a good question – makes this one redundant).

"Understands the problems of people like you": Bush +1.

Also, the “right track/wrong track” number has evened out at 49%-49%. Ho boy, get out the smelling salts for this one - by 4 points, people think Bush has done more to unite than divide the country. And a majority feels that the war in Iraq was worth fighting, that it is part of the war on terrorism, and that we are safer than before September 11th.

The bottom line: Bush has neutralized his weaknesses and locked up his strengths; those strengths are the overriding issues of this election; and Kerry cannot and will not lay a glove on those strengths.

Yeah, a lot can happen in seven and a half weeks, but it’s sure looking like check and mate.

BTW, Kerry’s consolation prize is that Fox shows Bush up only 47%-43%. But what do those right-wing wackos know, anyway?