Following are news items by Knight Ridder’s political bloggers.

SET STRAIGHT ON… Following are news items by Knight Ridder’s political bloggers.

SET STRAIGHT ON DRAFT SPECULATION

So a Princetonian who calls herself a “totally tough tiger” wrote me to set the record straight on this whole draft thing.

It’s not that young people aren’t listening to the candidates, she writes. On the contrary, Gen-Y’ers very much are listening to the candidates’ blather about opposing a draft. They just don’t believe conscription is totally off the table.

This tigress, a fellow child of Pennsylvania who usually goes by Emily Chiswick-Patterson, writes that my Misinformation helps fuel draft fears post has it entirely wrong. My suggestion that young people aren’t watching the debates? Totally wrong, she notes.

“I disagree. I think that many people in this age group were watching the debates. I think their worry of a draft despite the candidates’ saying otherwise comes not from not hearing them say so, but from the fact that many lies and misinformation make their way into the debates. Why should the idea of a draft not be misrepresented as well?” tigress C-P writes.

“Who can forget George Sr.’s ‘Read my lips: no new taxes,’ or more recently, of course, W. forgetting that he does, in fact, own part of a timber company, the back and forth on several facts and figures, and the controversy over who said what/when/who/how? I think kids feel they are being lied to by Bush, and doubt his sincerity or validity when he speaks of no draft. That’s where the problem is coming from.”

There, tigress. Posted it. Enjoy the next time you indulge in one of your Bingo for Democracy games during a presidential debate.

By the way – is drinking involved with that? I can’t imagine.

And people say I’m conservative. Ha!

-By Adam Smeltz, Knight Ridder Washington Bureau

OHIO’S STILL NO. 1 IN SOMETHING

President Bush has pulled ahead of Sen. John Kerry by 5 percent points, 51-46, in the latest Washington Post tracking poll, but Kerry leads the president on visits to Ohio, 20 to 14, since March 3. For both candidates, Ohio has been their most important target based on their number of visits. Bush has also visited Pennsylvania 14 times during this period, and Kerry has made 20 trips to Florida.

-By Steve Love, Akron Beacon Journal

CANDIDATE WHO?

While George Bush and John Kerry were slugging it out in Friday night’s debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., two other presidential candidates were outside the hall, busy getting arrested.

Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik purposely crossed a police barricade, protesting their exclusion from the debate.

Cobb’s message: “To expose the undemocratic nature of these debates, this election and our government. These are not debates, these are infomercials.”

“This is a great feather in our cap,” said Steve Givens, head of the school’s presidential debate steering committee. “The visibility is the topping on the cake.”

And they can really use that visibility.

-By Ellen Dunkel, Knight Ridder Digital

(c) 2004, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.