It seems to me that the last 20 years of presidential politics actually contradicts your thesis. Reagan and Clinton won re-election largely on the force of their charisma and the happenstance of a good econony. Carter and Bush lost re-election despite incumbency because of a charisma deficit and the happenstance of a bad economy. The “winner” of this race will be re-elected in 4 years only if he has a good economy behind him (no guarantees there) and if he has the telegenic charisma that the populace seems to want in a president. Not knowing the state of the economy in 4 years I can make a guess about the charisma issue. I watched Gore last evening giving his “offer” to Bush. Whoooosh. It made my skin crawl. His demeanor and weird tonal inflections accompanied by that strange head bobbing he utilizies is like nails on a blackboard to me. If he wins I guess I’ll be changing the channel every time he appears on TV - just like I’ve been doing for the last four years whenever the president shows up, although for a different reason. Bush at least has a better TV persona, a little light-weight for sure, but at least he’s not some repulsive Cardassian lizard creature.
BTW, I’d like to thank all the respondents to this my first thread, it’s my first one on this highly intelligent board and I’m encouraged by the thoughtful discussion that ensued.
You gotta be Machiavellian here, unless you’re one of the two presidential contenders. Points to consider:
1 - The party in the White House always loses seats in the midterm elections. Given the narrowness of the lead the Republicans have, they’re guaranteed to lose control of both houses of Congress in '02 if Bush wins. The Dems, if Gore wins, fall even further behind.
2 - This is as far from 1960 as you can get. Even though its still disputed whether or not Kennedy won the popular vote, he won more than 300 electoral votes, more than enough to give him all the legitimacy he needed. Isn’t true this time around. Neither of them will be able to accomplish much of anything, other than losing both houses of Congress for their party in '02.
3 - It’s a slam dunk that the economy is going to suffer some sort of cyclical downturn sometime during the next four years. This will make whoever’s in the White House look bad, and will mean they’ll lose whatever little bit of advantage they might have had from incumbency. By '04, incumbency may even be a liability.
I wanted Gore, but there’s no way I want him to take office. I agree with Southern Style (yikes!) that Gore’s a loser, a congenital loser. Guy couldn’t even win his home state.
Let Bush have it. And then, let 'im have it!
Gee Phantom, you’ve put us in a very precarious position. You’ve publicly agreed with me about something, now if I can just get jshore- to do the same the world will undoubtedly come to an end.
Though I’d prefer your support for other reasons, I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, either. I welcome you into the “Bush for President” camp.
SouthernStyle
There seems to be a school of thought (mostly among Democrats), that it is better in the long run to let the opposing candidate win the election and suffer the consequences of the downturn in the economy, midterm elections and the like. I would remind folks of the old adage that a bird in hand is two in the Bush. There’s no predicting what will happen years from now. The economy could go south and recover by 2004 (as happened with Reagan), and any number of other complicating factors could interfere. I say go for broke now, and worry about the future later.
But there’s a third possible outcome – that the recount is done, but whether it is counted or not, still does not show Gore to be ahead (esp. with the overseas ballots counted), and thus it was a moot point anyway.
True, the margin is awfully slim, percentage-wise. But you can only recount so many times hoping to accomplish anything.
If my guy doesn’t win, the environment gets raped, the national debt doesn’t get paid off, and American Indians, many of them my friends, once again face the prospect of the dissection of their sovereignty. My job and my career are endangered. Do I still want my guy to win? Hell yes! But I don’t see how he’s going to without stealing the election, and I don’t want that either. I’m willing to fight my ass off for the next two to four years, despite the damage that will inevitably be done.
In the meantime, we have an uninformed, inexperienced marionette in our most important office. The Republican party is quite diverse. Which puppeteer is going to be pulling the national strings? John McCain? Tom Delay? Newt Gingrich? Jesse Helms? Pat Robertson? Pat Buchanan? Rush Limbaugh? Gordon Liddy? Maybe all of them at the same time?
I make this promise: you Republicans have absolutely no guarantee that Bush will support any of the issues that you, as a conservative, consider most important to you. To paraphrase a famous Southern Conservative, it all depends on who gets to him firstest with the mostest, and screw your opinion.
My candidate is a filthy, dishonest, weasel of a politician who caves in sometimes and twists in the political breeze. But he is solid on the issues I consider most important, and will remain so because it will always be in his best interest–there are people out there who make sure of that.
Who’s making sure of your interests, Republicans? Better find out fast…
Hey, I’ll probably be leaving the US in four years or fewer. For good. I’d just as soon my guy (Gore) won. Won’t be around for the backlash. ‘Sides, I’ve got a younger brother who will be just about soldierin’ age after he graduates, and I think Gore is slightly less likely to declare random wars on small Third World nations.
OK folks… I think we’ve all been reading just a few too many election threads.
Since the original proposal called for Bush electors to switch to McCain, not to Gore, it would require four electors to make it a 267-267-4 tie. However, it does not require a tie for the election to go to the house, merely that no candidate receive a majority of the electoral votes. Therefore a switch of one Bush elector to McCain would be sufficient to bring IzzyR’s scenario into fruition, at 270-267-1.
P.S- I just know I’ve made a glaring error somewhere, but what the hell- I’ll be in good company when it is pointed out.
If Bush did such a bad job as governer then why did his home state vote for him?
If Gore is such a better canidate why didn’t tennisee vote for him? Obviously they would know him best.
Sofa King, so your claiming Gore is solid on the enviroment and that he will pay off the national debt?
Don’t worry, SouthernStyle, I think the world is pretty safe!
This is a great thread topic though…because I really have been mulling over this question in my head quite a bit. In the end, I end up in about the same place as Gadarene and RTFirefly. I keep thinking, maybe it is just better if Bush wins and we takes our chances on 2004 (and the 2002 midterm elections) and then I start thinking about the Supreme Court and the environment and the estate tax and Trent Lott and Tom DeLay…and then my skin starts to crawl.
If Gore does prevail though, I do hope that he does so in a way that is generally perceived as fair (well, not necessarily including the strongest Bush partisans — that’s sort of unlikely)…and not by just having played the game a little better.
Yes, Asmodean, I do believe Gore is solid on the environment and the national debt. He will not back away from the commitments that we currently have, unless some big-ass horses get traded. How do I know this? I know the people who watch him intently–lobbyists (I suppose I rate as one myself, but I’m a one-trick pony–feel free to call me pond scum). That’s as close as you’re gonna get to “solid” in the Waffle Zone.
He’s got a ton o’ bricks shored up under those two planks. Reversal of position, particularly in the precarious situation such as he would be in, would be the political equivalent of hari kiri. Gore’s too smart for that.
I’m not certain at all about the other guy, and you shouldn’t be either, because nobody nailed him down on anything. With a Republican-controlled Congress and a packed Supreme Court, we may not be able to ever reverse the vacuous decisions of an empty suit. And you don’t know what those decisions will be. I can hang with that, but it’s not easy.
The campaign is over; you can drop that stuff. Here are possible answers anyway:
Texans will vote for anybody from Texas (Yee-hawww!!!).
Tennesseans will vote along party lines, like most people. It’s now a GOP-dominated state, like much of the south. And anyway, didn’t Bush try to hammer on a point about Gore really being from DC, not Tennesee?
