I’M SURE THESE POLLS DON’T MEAN MUCH, but Joe Gandelman is surprised to see that Bush has actually gained a point on Kerry over the last week.

Well, Donald Sensing predicted it.

But what’s going to happen, I think, is that the election will be determined by what voters think about the war, and the economy, in late October. On the economy front, that’s probably unfair, since Presidents don’t have much actual control over the economy, but it’s probably good for Bush, since it looks like it’ll be improving between now and then.

On the war front it’s fair, I think — though no doubt the enemy will do their best to ensure that things look as bad as they can make them look around then.

UPDATE: A reader emails about “the enemy,” above:

Surely “the opposition” would be a better term, or simply, the Democrats.
We have enemies in war, but it seems a tad strong for electoral politics.
There are bipartisan alliances from time to time, and we are all Americans,
are we not?

I was actually talking about, you know, the enemy trying to influence the elections along the lines of Madrid. . . .