The poll, sponsored by The Capital Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and conducted by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center, shows Bush with 52 percent support among likely voters, Kerry with 38 percent, and independent Ralph Nader with 4 percent.
When Nader is removed from the choices, his four points are evenly split between Kerry and Bush and the 14 point spread remains. A week ago, a poll showed Bush with only a 2 point lead, well within the margin of error. How could so much change have taken place in the last week?
Badger Poll director G. Donald Ferree Jr. noted that the timing coincided with the revelation that CBS News had received fake documents calling into question Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.
"It looked like he was being unfairly attacked," Ferree said, adding that the temporary boost for Bush "could be a bubble" that may burst, particularly after next week's first presidential debate.
Asked about the conduct of the campaign, 29 percent of those in the Badger Poll said they believed Kerry has been "unfairly attacking his opponent," compared to 23 percent who complained Bush had done so.
On the detailed questions Kerry beat Bush only on "protecting the environment." The biggest spread was on what is arguably the most important issue, "protecting the United States from terrorism." Here, Bush had 53 percent, with Kerry at a mere 15 percent--a 38 point spread.
Meanwhile, Kerry is coming here to Wisconsin to do his debate preparation. He's staying in Spring Green at the House on the Rock Resort. The House on the Rock is a great, absurd tourist attraction, a crazy counterpart to the elegant Frank Lloyd Wright attractions that are also in the area. The House on the Rock is an architectural mishmash, patched together, built into the rock in places and teetering way out over it in another. It is conjoined to a maze of a museum that houses a demented collector's overload of junk and minor treasures. It is only too easy to offer up the House on the Rock as a metaphor for the mix of positions and issues and contradictory statements that Kerry has piled together over the long months of striving to make his way to the Presidency.
But welcome to Wisconsin, anyway, Senator Kerry. I hope the people of Wisconsin are nice to you, and that you get a chance to enjoy the beauty of our state, to practice up for your debate, and to recover from your laryngitis, even though--I must say--that lost-voice effect might win some people over by reminding us of our old and well-favored President, Bill Clinton.
UPDATE: Here's a better link for the House on the Rock, from the Roadside American website, which specializes in offbeat attractions. The description begins:
Alex Jordan, Jr. wanted to teach Frank Lloyd Wright a thing or two about architecture. The lesson started years ago.
Jordan's dad, a budding architect, had been dismissed at Wright's Taliesin home, near Spring Green, with the declaration, "I wouldn't hire you to design a cheese crate or a chicken coop." Soon after, the senior Jordan chose a pinnacle rock south of Taliesin to build a parody of Wright's fancy-pants architecture, a strange "Japanese house." The ceilings were dangerously low (padded now to accommodate tourists) and the structure seemed to cling precariously to the odd contours of the rock.
There's much, much more, including the "Infinity Room," which seems as if it goes on forever.
Suffice it to say: the House on the Rock is a metaphor goldmine for people writing about the Kerry campaign.
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