The Press and John Kerry

The press and John Kerry, that is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo."

As you know, “The Factor” has been trying to secure an interview with  the senator since July.  And we've been getting the runaround, even though  Kerry told "TV Guide" he wants to do “The Factor”.

So what's going on?  Well, first of all, we don't know who's calling the shots inside the campaign. There are many people involved, but no one  that is the el supremo as far as we know.  Some of the senator's closest  advisers have told him this is a venue he should do, but somebody's  preventing it, maybe even the senator himself.  We just don't know.

Each day the Kerry campaign does internal polling, which tells them  where they should campaign and what areas they have to concentrate on.  But  there's no question that the Kerry campaign is staying away from the  national press, especially TV.

Since Labor Day, the senator has appeared on exactly two TV news  programs nationally, one on CNN, the other "Good Morning America."  That's  it.  Kerry's playing the media game exceedingly cautiously.

To be fair, so is President Bush, but the president did come in here  and answered the questions while Kerry has not.  This isn't personal.  This  is simply keeping you posted.  All Americans need as much information as  possible to make informed decisions.  You can learn from the debates, but  forget about the political ads.  They're propaganda.  John Kerry is making  a mistake by avoiding the national TV news, because some polls now show him  losing ground.

For example, a new Gallup poll released today has Bush up by eight points. Others like Rasmussen still have the contest in a dead heat.

"Talking Points" believes that unless Senator Kerry begins to define  himself to the voters, he will lose.  Americans know who President Bush is,  for better or for worse.  But most of us don't know if John Kerry shares  our values.

If the '92 election was the economy, stupid, the '04 election is about  what these men stand for, who they are, rather what they say they'll do.

TV is the most powerful tool in the world.  When a person wants to  persuade someone, the camera gives you a window that all the printed paper  in the world cannot give you.

John Kerry has two weeks to show America just who he is.  If he  continues to avoid TV interviews, he will lose the election.

And that's the "Memo."

The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day

We here at “The Factor” promised you the best election coverage, and,  with two weeks to go, we hope we have kept our word.

Now we are keeping up our billoreilly.com poll question: So far, has  “The Factor” favored one of the presidential candidates over the other.   Close to 150,000 of you have voted so far.  Wow.  Fifty-seven percent say  no favoritism.  Thirty-three percent say we are favoring President Bush.   That's up a bit.  And 10 percent say we are favoring Senator Kerry.  That's  down a bit.

Ridiculous?  Not at all.  It's a solid poll, and, as I said, we'll  keep it up there until Election Day.  And we'd like you to e-mail us if you  feel our election coverage can be improved in any way because we're proud  of it.  We think we're giving you the straight story here.  But if you  think we're skewing it, we want to know.