Even as Bush has opened up a small lead in the national polls--and I've tried to offer some evidence in my posts that this lead is underwhelming--evidence has been accumulating that he remains weak among the kind of independent and swing voters he needs to form an electoral majority.

In fact, the Annenberg Election Survey has just released data that indicate, while Bush made some small gains among the overall electorate when comparing the pre-GOP convention and post-GOP convention periods, he has actually lost ground among "persuadable voters" (those voters who are undecided or who say there is a "good chance" they could change their mind about the candidate they currently support).

For example, Bush's favorability rating fell from 47 percent favorable/30 percent unfavorable among persuadables in August (August 9-29) to 43/33 after the GOP convention (September 3-12). And Kerry's rating among this group actually has gone up: from 36/25 to 43/25 (now somewhat better than Bush's).

In addition, Bush's overall job rating among persuadables is now 44 percent approval/49 percent disapproval; his job rating on the economy is 32/63 and his job rating on Iraq is 34/59. Even his job rating on terrorism is only 50/41. And all of these ratings are now lower among persuadables, not higher, than they were in August

Bush has also lost significant ground among persuadables since August on some key candidate characteristics including "cares about people like me", "shares my values", "out of touch with people like me", "stubborn" and "arrogant". These voters are now more liikely, not less likely, to think the positive attributes apply to Kerry and the negative attributes to Bush.

In short, the persuadables aren't persuaded and appear to be ripe for Democratic gains. What's the key? One possibility is Iraq. Persuadables are now less convinced than ever that Bush has a clear plan for bringing the situation in Iraq to a successful conclusion--just 17 percent now think so. Unfortunately, only 15 percent of persuadables think Kerry has such a plan--not much of a difference and not even one in Kerry's favor.

Make that difference a big one in Kerry's favor and Bush's weakness among persuadables could translate into big gains for the Democratic ticket.