For all the back and forth, up <$NoAd$>and down news we're hearing about the 2004 presidential election, this is the most salient piece of information I've seen in some time.

From this week's Cook Report, following up on numbers crumched by the ISI Group ...

The broader dynamics of the current situation strongly suggest this will be a close race. Witness a recent analysis by the Washington office of the investment research firm the ISI Group, pointing out that in Gallup polling one year before the general election, Bush enjoyed the third-highest job approval rating of any modern president among his own party members, trailing only former Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. However, Bush had the lowest approval rating among members of the opposition party, even lower than former President Bill Clinton's year-out approval numbers among Republicans. The unusually strong approval numbers among his fellow Republicans builds Bush a very high floor, but the equally strong degree of opposition among Democrats constructs an unusually low ceiling. As a result, if Bush were a stock, he would have an extraordinarily narrow trading range. This, along with the equally divided nation, pushes the race toward a very competitive situation.

That's the fundamental reality of the election.