Just-released Annenberg Election Survey data indicate that Kerry is making progress among persuadable voters and independents, who continue to be very critical of Bush.

For example, Kerry had a 7 point lead (37-30) among persuadable voters (undecideds or those who favor a candidate, but say they might change their mind) in early June as the candidate who was rated higher on "cares about people like me". Now he has a 41-27 lead.

Where Bush had advantages on candidate characteristics in early June, a number of these advantages have dimished--for example, on personal likeability and experience. And Bush had a tie on "shares my values" which has now turned into a small Kerry lead. Perhaps most intriguingly, Bush used to have an advantage on "says one thing, does another", but now Kerry has the advantage--more of these voters now think that phrase applies to Bush than think it applies to Kerry.

Independents generally favor Kerry over Bush by more than persuadables and on more characteristics (for example, "inspiring", "trustworthy" and " has the right experience to be president"). Independents also give Kerry a large advantage in favorability ratings--he gets a 41 percent favorable/31 percent unfavorable rating, for a net of +10, while Bush gets a net rating of -3 (42/45). And Cheney gets a net of -17 (29/46) while Edwards is +18 (38/20).

On a number of other measures, both independents and persuadable voters are quite negative about Bush and the results of his policies, with persuadables tending to be particularly negative. For example, persuadable voters overwhelmingly believe the country is off on the wrong track (55 percent), rather than going in the right direction (31 percent). They don't believe economy is doing well (78 percent rate economic conditions as just fair or poor). And they give Bush just a 40 percent approval rating on the economy with 54 percent disapproval.

But it is on the war with Iraq that these voters seem most disaffected with Bush and his policies. They give Bush a dreadful approval rating on Iraq of 36/59 and, even on handling the war on terrorism, they only give him a 40/54 rating. By 60-34, they don't think the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over and, by 67-20, they believe the Iraq war has increased, not decreased, the threat of terrorism.

They also overwhelmingly believe that Bush does not have a clear plan for bringing the Iraq war to a successful conclusion (69-23). Unfortunately, they strongly feel that Kerry doesn't have a clear plan for concluding the Iraq war either (54-15). And I'd have to say the Democratic convention so far has likely failed to change that opinion.

If I was Kerry, I wouldn't wait 'til October to try to bring some clarity to this issue. The future is now: persuadables and independents are waiting.