Kerry pollster not confident

There's been a buzz this morning about Kerry pollster Mark Mellman's somewhat dire comments regarding Kerry's chances today. John Podhoretz at The Corner analyzes it here:

Mark Mellman's piece in the Hill is one of the most extraordinary political documents I've ever read. All you need do is stitch together the quotes that suggest Kerry is heading to his doom:

"Win or lose, it is important to acknowledge the daunting challenge Sen. John Kerry faces." " First, we simply do not defeat an incumbent president in wartime."

"Democrats have spoken often and powerfully about the nation’s economic problems. But by historical standards, they are not that bad."

The “misery index” is 7.8 today but was 20.5 when Jimmy Carter was defeated....The level of economic pain we are now feeling is not commensurate with voting an incumbent president out of office."

"On average, incumbents who have been defeated have only had a 38 percent job rating. Bush is 10 points higher than that."

"We often point to the fact that a majority of Americans say the country is seriously off on the wrong track. Fifty-two percent hold that view. But when Bush Sr. was defeated, 72 percent thought the country was seriously off on the wrong track."

"It has been an uphill fight."

Mellman wrote this on Sunday. It is all but impossible to believe that Kerry's own pollster didn't see numbers that depressed him deeply and caused him to draft an unprecedentedly negative report on his candidate's own prospects to be published on the morning of the election.

Whatever qualifiers he has added on to suggest that he still expects Kerry to win are just that -- qualifiers, and utterly unconvincing ones. Take from this what you will, but there's no question that inside the Kerry camp at least some people think their man has already lost.