Connecting the dots in NH 02

For those of you just tuning in, a brief quiz:

Charlie Bass is

(a) a "Kerry Republican," a Republican congressman representing a district John Kerry carried in 2004.

(b) stuck in the worst national political environment of his Congressional career.

(c) facing an opponent who will spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 million by Election Day.

(d)  an incumbent who has failed to reach 50 percent support in the last three independent polls, including two by the Becker Institute and the American Research Group.  The average of the last four independent polls* (including one by the Concord Monitor in mid-September) shows Bass at 47 percent -- a match of President Bush's performance in NH 02 two years ago.

(e) all of the above.

* Bass was at 55 percent in the Monitor poll; 46 percent in the last University of New Hampshire Granite State poll; 39 percent in the Becker Institute poll; and 48 percent in the latest American Research Group survey.