Yeah, it’s pretty much all guesswork now, as far as the pundits and polls go. So let’s look at unsourced rumors about what the campaigns think, via Chris Suellentrop in Slate. Could easily be people seeing what they want to see. Could be an accurate indicator of campaign mood. Could be that Kerry’s people have better campaign discipline than Bush’s people. You know what I think. See you on the flip side.

Mickey Kaus is not a guy I count on to get it right that often, but his endorsement of Kerry is rooted in a clarity of vision that I’ve seen from barely any pundit. I’m gonna go ahead and quote this, since he doesn’t have permalinks: What’s at stake isn’t how to give millions of relatively healthy Americans better health care. It’s how to stop millions of relatively healthy Americans (and other humans) from eventually dying at the hands of aggrieved groups who will in coming decades a) find it easier and easier to organize, thanks to the Web, and b) be increasingly be able to get their hands on increasingly destructive weapons, especially bioweapons. I get this basic framework from my colleague Robert Wright’s excellent series on terrorism, available here. (For appropriate accompanying atmospherics, I recommend the unsuccessful but eerily prescient film Twelve Monkeys.) Currently the dominant threat is Islamic extremist terrorism. But after that it will be some other flavor of terrorism—environmental radicals, perhaps, or animal rights fanatics, or separatists, or superempowered Columbine nihilists, or all of them at once. ...

If the Democratic Party expects to maintain moral high ground this election, there’s going to have to be a lot less of this sort of thing.

CNN’s Carlos Watson thinks it’s a tight race, but he’d call it for Kerry after months of thinking Bush had it in the bag. I think he’s being pretty realistic. Eleanor Clift, over at Newsweek, uses much of the same reasoning to predict a Kerry win (original). Once again, it’s about the end game (original). As I’ve said before, Kerry has the superior end game. Rove is terrifying, sure, but he’s known for slinging mud well before the election. He is not so good at handling those last few days. Remember in 2000, when he made the nearly fatal mistake of sending Bush to California in the closing days of the election? Whouley and Sasso have proven experience as closers. That’ll show this year. ...

Ron Suskind has a nice archive of Bush White House documents that he’s releasing now and again. Interesting stuff. One recent piece of interest was this projection of oil price rises (original) following an invasion of Iraq. Suskind notes the optimism inherent in the assumption that oil prices will be the only thing affected. Me, I notice the optimism that $45 a barrel is the worst case scenario. We’ve beaten that by $7 a barrel, for reasons that the memo doesn’t even speculate on. Namely, terrorist action to prevent the flow of oil.

Your article of the day is from Fox News (original), and it says that Bush is leading Kerry by 2% in the polls. “Um, how is this good news for Kerry?” The key paragraphs are paragraphs two and three, which read: These new poll results show a slight dip in polling conducted Wednesday and Thursday night when Bush topped Kerry by 50 percent to 45 percent. Polling was conducted Thursday and Friday evenings, so about half of those interviewed would have had the opportunity to hear reports of a new tape from Usama bin Laden. ...

I’ve been intrigued by Ryuhei Kitamura’s Azumi since I saw the trailer back at FanTasia. I finally found a Korean DVD with English subtitles, and now I have watched it, and I am replete with satisfaction. More or less. For the first hour or so, you could mistake Azumi for a fairly serious chambara piece. There’s cool action and swordplay and while your typical chambara movie does not star a teenage girl, the plot — ninjas must kill the warlords who threaten the Tokugawa Shogunate — is pretty straightforward. There are certainly some oddball characters, but the main thrust of the movie is your basic warriors wandering the land, facing the occasional moral crisis and fighting for what will hopefully prove to be justice. ...

I overheard the best conversation ever at my comic book store today. Two teenage girls were sitting around provoking the guy who runs the place, who was sitting around being amused. Teenager one picks up a copy of Transmetropolitan. “Hey,” she says, “Is this guy a metrosexual?” She’s pointing at the cover, which is of course Spider Jerusalem. “No,” says the comic book guy. “He’s completely not metrosexual.” “Then why is he carrying a man bag?” ...

Today we’re going to dispel the myth of chaos in the Democratic ranks. This is a really popular one, because everybody knows that the conservative movement has spent 40 years building a network of think tanks, foundations, funding, and so on. Progressives can’t compare. Wring your hands. This apocalyptic vision fails to take into account the utility of the Internet, which makes a huge difference when you’re trying to build a movement. Thankfully, someone figured this out. Make no mistake: Howard Dean will be as responsible for a Kerry victory as anyone. ...

Right. You’re going to get one of these once a day between now and Tuesday. They’re mostly directed at my friends who are feeling mopish about the potential for a Kerry victory. Today, I’ve got an Al Giordano essay for you. Al is one smart cookie. He predicted Kerry’s victory in Iowa. He knows Kerry and Kerry’s people really well. He is not randomly making stuff up to make himself feel better. ...