Kerry's Rising Stock Among Top Execs (Business Week)

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NEWS ANALYSIS
By Steve Rosenbush

Kerry's Rising Stock Among Top Execs

The Dems' candidate is gaining support among corporate highflyers. The shift away from Bush may be small, but it could be significant

Last month at the Democratic convention, John Kerry surrounded himself with military leaders and soldiers to bolster his image as a Presidential candidate worthy of being Commander-in-Chief. On Aug. 4, Kerry used a similar tactic on the economic front. His campaign released a list of 200 prominent supporters from the business and financial world, resisting Republican efforts to portray him as a liberal senator who's out of the economic mainstream.

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Even a small shift in support can be psychologically significant, though. And some of the latest polls suggest that Bush is playing political defense. Kerry is ahead by three to five percentage points in many polls, and if the election was held today, he'd win, says political expert Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "The President may think he's okay, but he's not," says Sabato. He acknowledges, though, that August's political wisdom "isn't worth very much" for an election that won't be held for another three months.

Yet, regardless of how small the shift in Kerry's favor may be, it's likely larger than the degree of support Bush is picking up among prominent Democrats who voted for Gore in 2000. That list is bound to be pretty short.

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Support for Kerry can even be found inside what is viewed by many as the quintessential conservative company, News Corp (NWS ). Kerry supporters include Peter Chernin, president of the media giant that owns Fox News, The New York Post, and the Weekly Standard.

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Putting the culture of scandal aside for the moment, many corporate executives tend to look, and vote, pretty much like the rest of the country. And at the moment, it's leaning toward Kerry.

more at
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/aug2004/nf2004085_0404_db038.htm