Fire bad!

No, they don't care about the undecideds any more, do they?

That was the conclusion of several pundits last night. The general idea is that the ranks of the undecided are so thin and so likely to break for Kerry that their only hope is to try to get their base as energized as the Democrats are. Zell Miller did a lot to move that ball forward, Cheney a little less so.

It will be interesting to see what Bush does tonight. So far, the economy hasn't been mentioned at all, with the exception of calling economic critics "girlie men," an attempt to inoculate the president against bad econ numbers, but one that would seem to appeal only to people who operate on the emotional level of a 12-year old -- which is to say, many Bush supporters.

Bush will have to mention the economy some -- his campaign has promised as much, anyway. I'm sure he'd rather not mention it at all, but he has to offer new programs to prove he has the "vision thing."

I'm still not sure what to expect on that front. It may be the case that he'll want to keep the ideas fairly small, in order to keep the econ talk to a minimum, because it's anything but his strong point, to say the least.

But a new, bold tax-reform proposal would throw red meat to the base, for sure.

Updated to add: There's a Wall Street Journal article today by Harwood and Hitt saying Bush is still trying to appeal to undecideds, a group they believe is actually leaning to the GOP:

Bush aides suggest that an interest in details is one important characteristic in a candidate for the narrowing group of undecided voters, now estimated by some in the Bush campaign to be as few 6% of those likely to go the polls.

Bush aides say their polls and focus groups suggest the group tends to be consist of moderate to conservative, generally white voters who are likely to be churchgoers. In other words, they have the profile of potential Bush voters.

Odd. That's the exact opposite of what was said last night on CNN -- I believe it was a panel for News Night with Aaron Brown, which actually included John Harwood. The transcript is not available yet, so I can't be sure about that, but if that's so, it's odd that Harwood didn't mention the conclusion of his article. Could it be he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about?

Anyway, the article goes on to say that Bush's polling -- wait, I thought he didn't do that! -- shows that these undecideds also like to hear about specific policy proposals, which is why Bush will lay some out tonight.

It's also why Kerry probably really fucked up by not talking about specifics during the convention.

(That's an AP photo, by the way.)