Rasmussen's daily poll today tells us that not only has President Bush passed Sen. John Kerry in the popular vote, Bush now leads the Electoral College race for the first time this year.

Another look at the daily numbers suggests that, rather than the Swift Boat veterans' controversy taking a big bite out of Kerry's support, another factor may be in play. Bush's numbers seemed to have bottomed out at the same time U.S. turned sovereignty back over to Iraq and he started more intense campaigning to talk about his successes.

In Florida for example, on June 29, Kerry led Bush by 48-to-40. As of last week, according to the Rasmussen numbers, Bush was up 50-to-45 in that state.

On June 30, more Americans gave Bush a poor rating on Iraq (47 percent) than a good rating (40 percent). This week, that number had changed. Fourty-three percent gave Bush the thumbs up on Iraq while 41 percent rated him negatively.

President Bush's move two weeks ago - to force Kerry to admit he wouldn't have voted differently on the Iraq war resolution even knowing all that he knows today - gets a lot less note than the Swifties ads. But that move essentially took Iraq off the table as a talking point for Kerry (check out this look at one of Kerry's stump speeches this week as an example). Kerry's key campaign issues are now an effort to tie Bush to a "shadowy" 527 group, and a convoluted, quasi-government takeover of health care.

Make no mistake: the Swift Boat controversy isn't helping Kerry. But the big shift in momentum toward Bush seems to have begun at about the same time the U.S. turned sovereignty back to Iraq and put it on the path to free, democratic elections next year.