The Fall Subscription drive is underway. Remember, your subscription will not automatically renew. You must go to the web page to accomplish your Mullings subscription renewal.

TO:         James Carville
FROM:  [Code Name] Severus Snape
RE:         Double Secret 43-Days-to-Go Analysis

James. Congratulations on having taken command of the Kerry-for-President effort. As you instructed me, I have withheld communications until we got about six-weeks out. Here's my assessment:

1. We must make certain the US press corps understands that the recent polling in United States (which is going in the wrong direction at an increasingly alarming rate) is unfair, unbalanced, and unrepresentative of the world as a whole.

1. Our allies at the New York Times and CBS were forced to release a poll which showed Bush leading Kerry by nine points among likely voters. Tell them not to ask questions like: Who do you think will win (61 - 27 said Bush); and do you approve Bush's handling of terrorism (79 - 16 approved).
2. CBS should have leaned on the Times not to include the fact that among women Kerry has gone from a 52-40 lead to a 48-43 deficit since July.
3. The 13 point lead in last week's Gallup poll was not the best possible news in our effort to keep our base energized.
4. A Knight-Ridder/MSNBC poll showed "Bush leads in six of the seven battleground states he won four years ago:" Arizona 50 - 39; Missouri 48-41; Nevada 50-45; New Hampshire 49-40; Ohio 49-42; and West Virginia 45-44."
5. The seventh is Florida. Even though polling is meaningless, we don't need senior Democrats like Senator Bob Graham Senator Bob Graham, who, according to the Sun Sentinel Newspaper, "Singled out political rival President Bush and his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, for praise, saying they provided "excellent leadership in a difficult time."

   When did honesty begin to rear its ugly head in this campaign? And why, for goodness sake, did it have to be reared in Florida?

2. In contrast to this flood of bad news in the US, the tide of international polling is running our way, in a big way. A recent article, for instance, in "The New Nation" states:

"[A] majority of Asians prefer Kerry than Bush. In Japan which is regarded as America's best friend in Asia, Kerry was favoured 43-23 for Bush. In China and Indonesia, the result of the poll was even more encouraging for Kerry because Kerry scored 52% and 57% while Bush secured 12% and 34% votes respectively."

3. We should push these data to the US press corps. We need not make a big deal about the fact that "The New Nation" is a newspaper published in Bangladesh.

4. I want to touch on this very lightly, given the fact that we are neighbors and all, but you and Paul and the rest of the Clintonistas need to get your names out of the headlines and your heads into the campaign.

5. Writing in yesterday's Boston Globe, columnist Tom Oliphant led:

"John Kerry gave a more than decent account of himself in Michigan last week in an important oration about the economy. But several new members of his campaign staff thought it more important to step all over his message and promote themselves as the new bosses of the effort."

1. He was writing about you, James. Want me to say something horrible about him?

6. In yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle - as close to a campaign newsletter as we have west of the Hudson River - Martin F. Nolan (a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government wrote a column headed: "Why Bush is Teetering."

7. After about eight thousand words of blather about changing demographics, Nolan wrote the following:

"Where Kerry prepares for the Sept. 30 debate is as important as how. A modest motel in Fort Lauderdale might convince people that he is a regular guy. If Kerry chooses a family estate accessible by private jet, he will reinforce his aloof, rich-guy reputation. The windsurfing photograph was a disastrous metaphor: blowin' in the wind on a toy unfamiliar to most folks in Missouri and Ohio.

"Kerry's cluelessness is a cousin of indecisiveness, a trait American voters will reject."

1. Want me to say something horrible about him?

8. Donna Brazile, writing in the NY Times yesterday said she thinks Kerry's got Bush right where he wants him: Thirteen ahead with six weeks to go. But Kerry needs to stay on message for more than 10 seconds at a time.

1. Want me to say something horrible about him?

Signed,
Snape