I very much hope that Al Qaeda do see it the way Don suggests, and that they hold off terrorist attacks for fear of damaging Bush's election prospects. And the other factor that could enter into it would be that such an attack could well push a lot more people out to vote, as some kind of demonstration of national solidarity, and it seems pretty clear that other things being equal, the higher the poll, the better chance the Democrats have of winning.

Like Wolfgang, I can't see any indications that a Kerry administration would be likely to be any "softer" than a Bush administration, and I think it's highly unlikely that Al Qaeda would be thinking along those lines. If they prefer Bush, it would be because they saw a Bush administration as more likely to continue acting in a way that reinforces the strength and credibility of Al Qaeda, in the way reportedly remarked by the British Ambassador in that conference.

It doesn't make sense to me to see the Madrid bombings as primarily about Spanish domestic politics, any more than to see the attack on the World Trade Centre as about trying to affect the political balance in NewYork.