Useful information may be found here, however ideologically contaminated by the purveyors, for those inclined to take polls, as well as electoral politics, seriously.

Electoral Battleground

"When Bonesmen Fight"

Tom Hayden,
Yale Politic

I hope some journalist has the guts to ask John Kerry
(Skull and Bones, 1965) and George Bush (Skull and
Bones, 1967) whether they have any qualms about
belonging to a secret, oath-bound network since their
college days. Did they discuss Skull and Bones in code
when President Bush called Senator Kerry to
congratulate him on his primary victories? Will they
agree not to leave the room if the reporter blurts out
"322", coded references to Demosthene's birthday and
Skull and Bones' founding.

Am I scratching the blackboard yet, dear reader? Or are
you smugly dismissing these questions as paranoid and
unsophisticated?

"Sikh Who Saved India's Economy Is Named Premier"

Amy Waldman, NY Times, May 20, 2004

NEW DELHI, May 19 — Manmohan Singh, the gentlemanly Oxford-educated economist who saved India from economic collapse in 1991 and began the liberalization of its economy, has been appointed the country's next prime minister, ending a week of high political drama.

Mr. Singh said Wednesday night that the country's president had asked him to form the next government. At his side stood Sonia Gandhi, who a day earlier had stunned the country by announcing she would not become prime minister as expected.

Mrs. Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, reiterated that decision on Wednesday, despite pleas and protests from party members. Parliament members from her Indian National Congress then selected Mr. Singh, who was finance minister from 1991 to 1996. He will be sworn in within a few days.

In many ways, Mr. Singh, the architect of the restructuring of the Indian economy after four decades of quasi-socialism, is an apt choice to lead India now, when it is fast rising as a global economic power.

It faces the challenge of reforming further in order to ensure higher growth rates, but also delivering the benefits of reform beyond the growing middle class. That is the message being taken from the election results, when the largely pro-reform government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party was rejected by voters.

"We will give to the world and to our people a model of economic reforms," Mr. Singh said Wednesday night, but with a "human element." The new government, he said, would "create new opportunities for the poor and the downtrodden to participate in development."

Full: here.

"Fear for Sale"

Greg Palast

September 11, 2001, was Derek Smith's lucky day. There were all those pieces
of people to collect-tubes marked "DM" (for "Disaster Manhattan")-from which
his company would extract DNA for victim identification, work for which the
firm would receive $12 million from New York City's government.

I have no doubt that Smith, like the rest of us, grieved, horrified and
heartsick, at the murder of innocent friends and countrymen. As for the
12-million-dollar corpse identification fee, that's chump change to the $4
billion corporation Smith had founded only four years earlier, ChoicePoint
of Alpharetta, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.

Let Us Hope the Darkness Has Passed

Arundhati Roy, The Guardian

India's real and virtual worlds have collided in a humiliation of power

For many of us who feel estranged from mainstream politics, there are rare, ephemeral moments of celebration. Today is one of them. When India went to the polls, we were negotiating the dangerous cross-currents of neo-liberalism and neo-fascism — an assault on the poor and minority communities.

None of the pundits and psephologists predicted the results. The rightwing BJP-led coalition has not just been voted out of power, it has been humiliated.

"Experts See Drawbacks to GOP Convention in NY"

Ellen Wulfhorst, Reuters

The Republican Party's hope that its convention in New
York would highlight a nation healed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks could
backfire as the White House comes under fire for its handling of the crisis
and the war in Iraq, strategists said on Monday.

President Bush's re-election effort is plagued with questions on whether his
administration could have prevented the attacks, and holding his party's
convention just minutes away from the World Trade Center, where nearly 3,000
people were killed, could make matters worse, they said.

"It was the wrong place to go from the beginning," veteran Republican
political consultant Roger Stone said.

"Nader Scrambles to Collect Thousands of Signatures"

Brian Faler, Washington Post, April 3, 2004

Ralph Nader would like your autograph.

In fact, he needs it. The longtime consumer advocate, who is running
for president as an independent, must collect hundreds of thousands
of signatures from voters across the country to get his name on state
ballots for the Nov. 2 election.

An anonymous coward writes:

"Here's the New Yorker article on Florida, Jeb Bush and etc.;

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040315fa_fa ct

It refers to the murky dealings of Jeb Bush with prominent Miami ex Cubans
and suggests that — Florida being a key state in the coming elections —
the White House cum the governor may try to pull some anti-Cuba demagoguery
stunt to boost the Republican vote in November.

"Antiwar Activism?"

Michael Kranish, Boston Globe

Senator John F. Kerry said through a spokesman this week that he has no recollection of attending a November 1971 meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War at which some activists discussed a plot to kill some US senators who backed the war.

"Senator Kerry does not remember attending the Kansas City meeting," Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said in a statement to the Globe in response to written questions about the matter. "Kerry does not remember any discussions that you referred to," the statement added, referring to the assassination plot.

The Polls Take a Nosedive: Terror Backlash Hits Bush's Votes

Paul Harris, Guardian, March 28, 2004

The damning testimony of former terrorism adviser Richard Clarke
has left the President's team in disarray as their approval ratings
begin to fall.

Republicans fear the devastating revelations about their failure to see al-Qaeda as an imminent threat before the 11 September terrorist attacks have seriously dented President George Bush's election campaign.