Kerry's showing he just can't take the heat

Sun-Times - Mark Steyn: "Both candidates gave speeches late on Thursday night. George W. Bush was more or less expected to. John Kerry didn't have to, but reported for duty even though nobody wanted him to."

John Kerry is running scared. The latest poll from Newsweek shows that the Bush/Cheney ticket got a 13-point margin bounce, and now leads Kerry/Edwards 54% to 43%.

Furthermore, the President's approval rating has risen to 52%. Good news, as I've heard it reported that no American president with an approval rating below 50% at Labor Day has been re-elected. Additionally, the poll shows the majority of the public wants to see President Bush re-elected (53%).

Another impressive number is that 27% of registered voters think the Bush/Cheney campaign initiated and coordinated the Swift Boat ads. All of the efforts made by the Kerry campaign in the last month have been for naught.

While it's too early to say that August was the most damaging month for the Kerry campaign -- after all,he's still got two more months of implode to do, and the Peter Principle precludes me from saying nothing will be as bad for Kerry as August was -- it will be noted as the start of the slide (Slide sounds too mild -- the angle of descent for the Kerry campaign in August is around 70 degrees. . . ).

It's up to the Republican Party grassroots efforts in the battleground states to keep up the momentum for the Bush campaign, and for alternative media -- Talk Radio, Internet media, and Blogs -- to keep the pressure up on Kerry fumbling messages.

Read Mark Steyn's column, and use the e-mail link below to send it out to all your friends.