www.latimes.com/news/custom/timespoll/la-na-poll26aug26,1,891368.story?coll=la-home-headlines
By Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON -- President Bush heads into next week's Republican National Convention with voters moving slightly in his direction since July amid signs that Sen. John F Kerry has been nicked by attacks on his service in Vietnam, a Times poll has found. For the first time this year in a Times survey, Bush led Kerry in the presidential race, drawing 49% among registered voters, compared with 46% for the Democrat. In a Times poll just before the Democratic convention last month, Kerry held a 2-percentage-point advantage over Bush. FOR THE RECORD: Presidential campaign poll --A headline that accompanied an Aug. The poll found that no more than 49% of registered voters surveyed favored the Republican ticket. That small shift from July was within the poll's margin of error. But it fit with other findings in the Times poll showing the electorate edging toward Bush over the past month on a broad range of measures, from support for his handling of Iraq to confidence in his leadership and honesty. Although a solid majority of Americans say they believe Kerry served honorably in Vietnam, the poll showed that the attacks on the senator from a group of Vietnam veterans criticizing his performance in combat and his antiwar protests at home have left some marks: Kerry suffered small but consistent erosion compared with July on questions relating to his Vietnam experience, his honesty and his fitness to serve as commander in chief. The Times Poll, supervised by polling director Susan Pinkus, interviewed 1,597 adults, including 1,352 registered voters nationwide, from Saturday through Tuesday. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. With independent voters splitting evenly in the survey between the two men, one key to Bush's tentative new advantage was his greater success at consolidating his base. While 3% of voters who called themselves Republicans said they would vote for Kerry, Bush drew 15% of all Democrats, and 20% of Democrats who consider themselves moderate or conservative, the poll found. Bush's advantage remained 3 percentage points when independent candidate Ralph Nader was added to the mix. In a three-way race, Bush drew 47%, compared with 44% for Kerry and 3% for Nader, whose access to the ballot in many key states remains uncertain. For all the promising signs for Bush, the poll found the president still threatened by a current of uneasiness about the nation's direction. In the survey, a slight majority of voters said they believed the country was on the wrong track. A majority also said the country was not better off because of his policies and needed to set a new course. And 45% said they believed his policies had hurt rather than helped the economy. Those results suggested that a substantial part of the electorate remained open to change. But amid the firefight over Kerry's Vietnam service and uncertainty about his policy plans, the Democrat still has not built a constituency for his candidacy as large as the audience for change in general, the poll suggested. Nearly 1 in 5 voters who say the country needs to change policy direction is not supporting Kerry, according to the poll. Sundberg voted for Bush in 2000, but now feels "we got ourselves in a mess in Iraq," where her son has been serving. She is dubious about Kerry, saying that "he's so back-and-forth about things." But while leaning toward Bush now, she can envision switching to Kerry by November. "Maybe just for a change, he should be elected," she said. Swift Boat Divide The country divides mostly along predictable partisan lines on the exchanges between Kerry and the group that has attacked his Vietnam record over the past month, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. But by several measures, the struggle appears to be drawing some blood from Kerry. The Swift boat group, which has received funding from several of Bush's supporters and advice from some veteran Republican operatives, has made only relatively small purchases of television time in a few battleground states for its two ads, the first charging that Kerry did not deserve some of the five medals he won in Vietnam and the second criticizing his antiwar testimony before the Senate in 1971. But with the controversy attracting intense media attention, especially on talk radio and cable television, the ads have achieved extraordinary visibility among voters. Fully 48% of those polled said they had seen the ad accusing Kerry of lying to win his medals; Similarly, 44% said they had seen the ad criticizing Kerry's Senate testimony; At the same time, 18% of those surveyed said they "believe that Kerry misrepresented his war record and does not deserve his war medals," while 58% said Kerry "fought honorably and does deserve" the medals. As many Republicans said they believed Kerry was lying as believed he fought honorably. By nearly 10 to 1, Democrats said Kerry served honorably. Independents sided with Kerry in the dispute by more than 5 to 1 Among them was Monika Schiel, a retiree in Gardena, Calif. "You have all the people that were on Kerry's boat--not somewhere downstream or upstream--confirming what he said," said Schiel. When voters were asked whether Kerry's protest against the war when he returned from Vietnam would influence their vote, 20% said it made them more likely to support him, while 26% said it reduced the chance they would back him, and 52% said it made no difference. But if Kerry showed relatively few bruises on these questions directly measuring reactions to the veterans' charges against him, indirect measures suggested he had suffered more damage. Asked how Kerry's overall military experience would affect their vote, 23% said it made them more likely to vote for him, while 21% said it made them less likely; That has to be a disappointment for the Kerry camp after a Democratic convention last month that placed Kerry's Vietnam service at the top of the marquee. Two other key questions produced even more troubling results for Kerry. In the July Times poll, 53% of voters said Kerry had demonstrated in his Vietnam combat missions the "qualities America needs in a president," while 32% said that by "protesting the war in Vietnam, John Kerry demonstrated a judgment and belief that is inappropriate in a president." In the August survey, that balance nudged away from Kerry, with 48% saying he had demonstrated the right qualities and 37% saying he had exhibited poor judgment. Likewise, the share of voters saying they lacked confidence in Kerry as a potential commander in chief edged up from 39% in July to 43% now; the percentage that said they were confident in him slipped from 57% to 55%. Both changes were within the poll's margin of error, yet both tracked with the poll's general pattern of slight Kerry slippage. Similar trends were evident on voters' assessments of the two men's personal qualities. Compared with July, Bush slightly widened his advantage over Kerry when voters were asked which was a strong leader and which had the honesty and integrity to serve as president. Following the poll's general trend, the percentage of voters who said they viewed Kerry favorably slipped from 58% in July to 53% in August, while the percentage who viewed him unfavorably ticked up from 36% to 41%. Bush's ratings were virtually unchanged from last month in this poll, with 53% viewing him favorably and 46% unfavorably. After a Democratic convention that focused much more on Kerry's biography than his agenda, 58% said they knew even a fair amount about the policies he would pursue as president; nearly 4 in 10 said they knew not much or nothing at all. By comparison, although Bush has put forward few specifics about his second-term priorities, 70% said they had a good idea of the policies he would pursue. Bush Holding His Own Compared with the trend of modest erosion for Kerry in the poll, Bush either slightly gained ground or stabilized his position on several measures. Bush's overall approval rating, which many analysts consider the best single gauge of his prospects in November, stood at 52%, with 47% disapproving; Bush's approval rating on the economy, at 46...
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