Polling Kerry: John Ellis makes the point that Kerry polls even with Bush (or ahead, but within the MoE) -- after a mostly patty-cake primary.

The Opinion Dynamics/Fox News poll is up. It's not good news for Senator Kerry. No one has said a negative word about him in four months and the best he can do is 44 percent.

This is worth remembering. Kerry's negatives will never be this low again. His positives will likely never be this high again, save for a few twinkling moments following his nomination. Bush is a known quantity, and whatever Kerry says about him, the voters have heard it (and worse) before. Kerry is the unknown quantity, the stand-in for the "generic Democrat" in the poll questions a few months ago. Everything indicates that this is still Bush's race to lose.