I have a newspaper column out tomorrow which pursues the hypothesis I mentioned a few days ago that an escalating crisis in Iraq might actually help President Bush, even though the crisis is demonstrably of his own making.

Meanwhile, Ruy Teixeira has a post on his blog DonkeyRising which says Bush's recent rise in the polls reflects his bulking up on support in the bright red states without making much if any headway in the battleground states where the race will be won or lost.

For what it's worth, I remain fundamentally optimistic about this race.