contrapositive

Bush Country? I think it's a bit early for Daily Kos to be more or less declaring Florida a lost cause for the Democratic presidential nominee in November. Still, the Sun-Sentinel's poll numbers are striking:

Asked to choose between the president and his likely Democratic challenger, Florida voters favored Bush over John Kerry by 47 percent to 42 percent. Bush held a slightly wider lead over Democratic candidate John Edwards, 49 percent to 41 percent.

As Kos points out, that's one the best recent results for Bush in a battleground state.

But let's keep things in perspective: 23% of the likely voters polled had no opinion of John Kerry (compared to 4% for Bush); a plurality chose "Economy/Jobs" as the most important issue in picking the next president (a situation, if it holds, that is likely to help the Democrats); and the margin of error was + or - 4%.

So Kerry is somewhere between 1% and 9% behind in a historic swing state where nearly a quarter of likely voters have no opinion of him and where the "Economy/Jobs" will be a central issue.

And he's likely to be the beneficiary of high turnout from an energized base, still seething over the 2000 result.

Those are odds that I'm willing to take.