Since the end of July, Bush's approval rating -- the core indicator of presidential popularity -- has hovered between 41 and 47 percent, depending on the poll. The latest numbers, released Tuesday by Gallup, put Bush's popularity at 45 percent. In almost every survey, a majority or near majority of respondents say they disapprove of the way the president is handling his job.

Contrast these numbers with those from just nine months ago, when Bush became the first president since his father in 1988 to win with a majority of the popular vote -- almost 51 percent -- nabbing the support of over 62 million Americans.

Lagging approval ratings, however, may not sink the president's agenda, even as his allies in Congress confront a historically daunting midterm election. The logic of so-called base politics, the Bush-era strategy that focuses on rallying committed Republicans instead of rushing to claim the center, may keep congressional Republicans close to Bush -- and get them reelected -- in 2006.

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CrimethInc, a spokesperson for the Black Hat Hackers Bloc, told Wired, "We want to bombard (the Republican sites) with so much traffic that nobody can get in." Their plan? Give away software that reloads GOP Web sites over and over again, slowing -- and maybe even crashing -- the servers.

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The Associated Press reports that a local state poll in Michigan shows Kerry leading Bush in a two-way match up, 49 percent to 42 percent. Gore won the battleground in 2000 with a heavy union-backed push in the days before the election. But wait to see if the Kerry lead shows up in other polls before putting Michigan firmly in the Blue column.

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In the days after the Democratic convention, Bush repeatedly said that the nation was "turning the corner" on jobs, "turning the corner" on education, and "turning the corner" in Iraq. But this week, CNN reports, "the 'turning the corner' line has disappeared from Bush's speech, as Democrats seized on the words to charge that the president was out of touch.

CNN cited a July Gallup poll finding that 57 percent of Americans are not satisfied with how things are going in the country, and a top Bush aide told the network that the campaign's internal polling showed the same thing.

The result: "Bush aides told CNN not to expect that line on the campaign trail anymore, saying it's not working. Publicly, the Bush campaign maintains there is nothing unusual about the about the evolution of a stump speech."

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According to theWashington Post, the group behind the anti-Kerry ads is called "People of Color United." It gets "substantial financial backing from J. Patrick Rooney, the former chairman of Golden Rule Insurance Co. and the founder of a new firm, Medical Savings Insurance Co. Both firms specialize in medical savings accounts, created by Republican-backed 1996 legislation, and health savings accounts, which were created by President Bush's 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation. "

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Alexander's new legal troubles come on top of the resignation of his entire Washington staff. On Wednesday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee statements from some of his former consultants:

"I'm disappointed in Rodney's lack of loyalty to the people that worked day and night for him to help him win and get re-elected. But, the voters are the ones that get cheated in the end," Trey Ourso said.

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"In schools, on the Internet and in television and radio ads, kids will be introduced to a Homeland Security mascot in the form of a dog . . . .

"The campaign, through Ad Council advertisements, will encourage families to develop and talk about a communication plan -- where kids should go, who would pick them up, how they would make contact -- for an emergency.

"The Homeland Security Department and groups such as the American Red Cross have been encouraging families to make plans and prepare emergency kits that include food and water, flashlights, battery-powered radios and anything else they might need for up to three days if the power is out."

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In the Times, Elisabeth Bumiller says that "Democrats and Republicans alike wondered aloud Tuesday whether Mr. Bush might be willfully starting a partisan nomination fight, less than three months before Election Day, that would allow him to argue that Democrats were blocking an important national security appointment." Bumiller doesn't identify any of those out-loud wonderers.

The Post's Mike Allen and Walter Pincus suggest different political considerations were behind the timing of Bush's announcement: Kerry and the Democrats have started to score points on intelligence, and Bush needed a way to push back. "A Republican political operative, who requested anonymity because of participation in the party's regular conference calls, said the president turned back to Goss because 'poll data showed Kerry had closed the gap with Bush on handling of terrorism and was slightly ahead as fit to be commander in chief.'"

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"When President Bush picks up a microphone, bounds onto a stage and engages his cheering audience in a rambling discussion of topics from Iraq to the economy, it comes off as relaxed, informal and largely spontaneous.

"'I feel like a talk show host,' Bush often says as he roams the platform in the center of the arena."

"But these 'Ask President Bush' campaign forums, the eighth of which was held at Northern Virginia Community College here Monday, leave little to chance.

"The national Bush campaign staff works through a local Republican office to assemble an audience of 1,000 to 2,500 people, depending on the site. The party offers registered party volunteers two tickets -- and says more are available if volunteers want to bring open-minded friends.

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"When asked about his motivations for seeking the Senate seat, Keyes cited what he said were issues on which Obama is out of step with voters in Illinois and throughout the country, particularly abortion, gay rights and taxation. Obama's support of abortion rights means he 'opposes the great American principles that led to the abolition of slavery ...'"

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Alexander's party switch light up the blogosphere over the weekend and especially infuriated liberal bloggers who accused the Louisiana representative of keeping other viable Democratic candidates out of the race by changing loyalties so late. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is also unhappy. DCCC head Bob Matsui is demanding that Alexander return hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds. Here's what Rep. Matsui had to say:

"Rodney Alexander owes an apology and he owes a refund to the thousands of honest people who supported him based upon his fraudulent claim that he was going to run for Congress as a Democrat.

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"But in keeping with tradition, Cabinet officials do not speak at the conventions -- or other campaign events. So Powell will not appear.

"'As secretary of state, I am obliged not to participate in any way, shape, fashion, or form in parochial, political debates. I have to take no sides in the matter,' Powell told the Unity: Journalists of Color Convention on Thursday. Powell was a featured speaker at the 2000 convention and even campaigned with Bush."

Funny, because sitting Secretary of Education Rod Paige will address the Republican National Convention on August 31, the second night of the 2004 convention. And if you hark back to the days when the Republicans had sitting Cabinet members to speak at their national nominating conventions, the "tradition" seems even less, well, traditional. Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole addressed the 1988 Republican National Convention, and in 1984, Dole, Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler and Chief U.S. Delegate to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick, who had Cabinet rank, all took the lectern.

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"President Bush on Tuesday nominated Rep. Porter Goss of Florida to head the embattled CIA, saying the former agency operative 'knows the CIA inside and out.'

"'He is well prepared for this mission,' the president said of Goss, chairman of the House intelligence committee. 'He's the right man to lead and support the agency at this critical moment in our nation's history.'

"Goss, whose nomination must be confirmed by the Senate, had been mentioned prominently in speculation about a successor to departed CIA Director George Tenet, who left amid a torrent of criticism of the agency's handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq.

"Bush still has a major decision ahead of him. He has embraced a cornerstone recommendation by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks: creation of a new intelligence czar to oversee the activities of the CIA and more than a dozen other intelligence agencies.

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"The avalanche of prose dedicated to dissecting his performance inspired this recent quip from the president: 'It really gets me when the critics say I haven't done enough for the economy. Look what I've done for the book publishing industry.'

"Already, in the first six months of 2004, several books about Bush hit US bestseller lists. One of the most talked about was 'The Price of Loyalty,' a tell-all by former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill that described Bush 'like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people' at White House cabinet meetings.

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The guardsmen, determined to ameliorate the black eye the armed services in Iraq suffered after Abu Ghraib, called in help, administered first aid and demanded answers from the Iraqi guards on hand.

"Some of the detainees said they had been held for three days with little water and no food. 'Many of these prisoners had bruises and cuts and belt or hose marks all over,' [Capt. Jarrell] Southall said. At least one had a gunshot wound to the knee.

"'I witnessed prisoners who were barely able to walk,' Southall said.

"The Oregon soldiers moved the prisoners into the shade of a nearby wall, cut them loose and handed out water bottles. They administered first aid when necessary and gave intravenous fluids to at least one dehydrated prisoner.

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Except for Clinton's cabinet, the Democrats fare at least as well as the Republicans when it comes to military service, though politicians from both parties put the press to shame. Of the journalists listed, only PBS' Jim Lehrer and blogger Markos Zuniga (of Daily Kos fame) ever served. Then again, maybe Alan Colmes is more suited to an anchor desk than a fox hole anyway.

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"But Sawka threw up her hands altogether upon discovering that Adecco, an international temp agency that has an office in Portsmouth, had hired her out to a consulting firm with Republican ties.

"The firm, Sawka learned, was trying to get Nader on the New Hampshire ballot in November, in a roundabout effort to help get President Bush re-elected in November.

"Sawka, 25, and six other workers hired through Adecco were directed to show up on Friday morning at Shaw's supermarket in Stratham, near the dairy farm where Bush was to speak to supporters at a picnic that afternoon. She was given a clipboard and a script instructing her to tell those at the rally: 'Without Nader, Bush would not be president.'

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"In Baghdad, Dr. Allawi's aides later announced that the government had approved a decree restoring the death penalty for a range of crimes, including some so broadly phrased that they appeared to cover virtually every kind of insurgent attack. A suspension of the death penalty was one of the earliest moves taken by the American occupation authority last year.

"The two actions on Sunday, coming amid some of the fiercest fighting of the 15-month insurgency, seemed to set a new benchmark for Dr. Allawi, whose political trademark since his youth in Saddam Hussein's Baath Party has been one of relentless toughness. The restoration of capital punishment had been expected since he took office in June, with a twin-edged vow to curb the insurgency by reaching out to disaffected groups that have joined or condoned it, and to prosecute the war fiercely against those who fought on."

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Polling frenzy is not restricted to convention-week surveys, of course. Every major American news network and newspaper has some kind of polling outfit in-house. And as the November election nears, Americans will get hit with the TV networks' daily reporting of the three-day rolling averages known as tracking polls. Rasmussen Reports, a smaller polling firm, is already running tracking polls in battleground states. "It's so they can have a new story every day," says Robert Blendon, who teaches political polling at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

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