Sorry, I never bet with things of real value. 
Elvis – good point. Courage of conviction is not relevant to what will actually happen.
But it is relevant as a measure of how certain you are. If you say, as ** Avalonian** does, that two years is a long time, and a lot can change, or as you do when you say that wagering now on the 2004 election is akin to a coin toss… then I agree you’re not espousing any particular certainty. And a wager makes no sense.
BUT – when someone writes of the Bush re-election, in a certain, decisive tone, “No chance. As of this week Bush is toast. He will never again get the softball treatment from the press, and without that, he has no chance at all of winning an election against a higher primate,” I think you’ll agree that the author of such words does NOT view the possibilities as a coin toss, or believe that he is likely wrong.
For such a person, accepting my wager would seem to make a great deal of sense.
Yes?
- Rick
I want Tejota to talk some more, I find it soothing…
So far, my bet’s on Edwards.
Lieberman is a conservative northerner, and I think both of these things will play against the odds for him. Americans like to vote for Southerners and Texans for some reason. As for the conservative thing, I doubt Democrats will be willing to risk another Ralph Nader – and I know that I at least will vote for a green party candidate above Lieberman even if it means Bush gets reelected. I’m not willing to let the Dems go that far right.
Gore should have “President in Exile” stamped on his forehead. Instead, he’s got “Loser” there: Republicans have been extremely successful at making an image for Gore, and it ain’t pretty. I don’t see him overcoming that image (although I hope I’m wrong).
And Kerry – hasn’t he lost the nomination like three or four times already? I admire him for being a trooper, but I don’t see him as a serious candidate.
Edwards has charisma without sleaze. He’s got an image that won for him in NC of being the Brave Warrior who Fights the Evil Corporation to Protect the Little Guy. It works well for him, and I think it’s an image that will (pardon my mixed metaphor) resonate increasingly well with the public. Nader has suggested he could support Edwards. He ran against Lauch Faircloth, Jesse Helms’ disciple, and won: despite hiring the nastiest in negative campaigners, Faircloth couldn’t find any scandal to stick to Edwards.
Unless it comes out that Edwards has something nasty in his past, I think he’ll be perfectly positioned to be the candidate: he’s a handsome, eloquent, clean-hands guy who’s made a career of fighting corrupt corporations.
Daniel
I think the reason why Mondale was branded a loser is he only got one state. And as popular as Reagan was, the guy was grossly incompetant as a president-at the very least a light weight.
The Democrats have one chance to beat Bush - on the right. A winning strategy for the Democrats would be to become the ‘war hawk’ party. After all, that’s what they used to be. Bush is vulnerable on Homeland Defense, where the administration is going seriously astray IMO, to is waffling on the war. If the Democrats could convince the country that they will fight the war better than Bush is, they’ve got a big chance.
Given that strategy, Al Gore isn’t the right man for the job. He’s vulnerable to the accusation that the Clinton administration was asleep at the switch when it comes to terrorism. Someone like John Kerry or John McCain, who have serious military credentials, could be a dangerous foe to Bush. Might even get my support.
Kerr. War veteran who can embarass George about his war records without even mentioning it. Regretably, he is very nearly as exciting as Gore, without the cuddlesome look George does so well.
I predict: Cheney is toast, Bush will ask Colin Powell to be VP, Powell will accept. (Maybe nobody else has noticed, but Powell is ambitious). Powell’s price is probably getting his way on Iraq.
That teaming could be a threat.
Basically, the “I’m for the people, he’s for the powerful” populist rhetoric. Chances are, Gore wasn’t really even thinking in terms of Business scandals, but it hardly matters. That rehetoric matches up quite well with Bush/Cheney/White/Kenny Boy business scandals, giving Gore a powerful “I told you so” message.
Stoid “as of this week” is really last week at this point. The event is the mainstream press (NY Times, and Washington Post) for the first time giving prominant coverage to the sleazy way Bush acquired his millions. More importantly, for perhaps the first time ever since he started running for president Bush had to answer hard questions in a press conference. Needless to say, he did badly.
A lot of people blame Gore for letting Bush define him and the race, and to a certain extent, this is true. Ultimately, he is responsible for getting his message out. But it wasn’t really Gores lack of ability that sunk him, it was the massively unfair way the press handled him vs. Bush. Bush got the benefit of the doubt way past the point of reason, He basically lied about the goals and effects of just about all of his policies, and the press gave him a pass. But they treated every little slip and exaggeration from Gore as a character flaw. With that kind of massivly slanted coverage, Bush should have won in a landslide. The fact that Gore held his own is a testament to the popularity of Gore’s policies.
Now that Bush is no longer a new face, and the press is no longer enamored of him, he isn’t going to get slanted coverage in '04 and that is going to kill him, His actual polices are deeply unpopular, he can’t speak in public effectively without a script, and his ‘character’ is just a pose for the camera. The better the people know him, the less they like him. He’s is your basic grifter. Charming, and loyal to personal friends, but he thinks that the rest of the world has ‘mark’ tattooed on their forehead.
Don’t be fooled by the popularity numbers. A good bit of those numbers are about the presidency, and not him personally. They don’t translate into intent to elect him. The latest Zogby poll has only 43% willing to vote for him again, even though his approval is supposedly at 70%.
Now Gore isn’t terribly likeable either, but at the end of the day, you can dislike him but still respect him, not so with Bush, without likeability, he has nothing other than his crony network. Thats good for a lot of money, but with people looking out for another attempt to cheat at the polls, that money isn’t enough to swing the election for him.
As I said before. Bush wins a popularity contest, but Gore wins a policy contest. The next election is going to be a policy contest. Now, if Bush looses the nomination to McCain, it’s a whole new ballgame.
Not so, War fever peaked months ago and will be nothing but a fond memory by '04. The legacy of Bush’s bogus War on terra will be a bunch of embarrassments in court and a reputation for trashing the constitution in persuit of an overblown threat.
Calling 9/11 an ‘act of war’ was always just a PR move. Popular as it was, it wasn’t the right solution for the country nor was it the right characterization of the threat.
By '04, Americans will have figured out that Al Quida shot their wad on 9/11. That wasn’t an opening move, it was a death spasm. 3 years without a major terrorist action in the US will make the war look like a boondogle.
That’s the word I’ve been looking for, grifter! Since GW came on the national scene I’ve though him to be your basic preppie college boy who slides through on family and gets a hand up from friends every now and then. A good customer for the test answer sheets, and ghost written papers that circulate for a price around the frats.
Why couldn’t I think of “grifter?” Perfect!
Not for Sam, who is kinda enamored of the idea that our current situation can be described as being “at war” - something he and I argued about a few weeks ago.
Fuckin’ A.
Let’s hope!
Oh, and ** Tejota, ** thanks. I’m going to sleep much better tonight.
John Podhoretz advocates that Bush launch the attack on Iraq between now and the midterm elections, to get the ‘rally round the flag’ thing going in his favor, and to rescue him from how bad he looks domestically. (That’s Podhoretz’ interpretation, not mine.)
It would probably give the GOP a moderate boost in the midterms. But there would likely be repercussions in 2004, and there will be a limit to how often Bush can successfully wrap himself in the flag of a wartime President, especially if it involves attacking adversaries who aren’t doing any saber-rattling of their own.
Once again, I repeat: there will be–nay, can be–no invasion of Iraq. No nation in the region will allow the U.S. to launch an invasion from its territory, and our allies are all firmly against it (with possible exception of Tony Blair, ever balancing on the yellow stripe of a two lane highway and hoping not to get killed).
That Bush is even considering it smacks of equal proportions desperation and idiocy. The absolute most he can hope for is either more meaningless airstrikes or an Afghan-style proxy war that the people of Iraq seem to have no interest in conducting.
Wouldn’t that also be the definition of a succesful war on terrorism? If we went through the next three years with repeated attacks, wouldn’t you just be screaming that he couldn’t even protect the country?
FWIW…
I’m betting on an attack on Iraq sometime between September and February.
And…
Nobody even knew who Clinton was in 1990. Clinton looked dead in the water in 1994. I wouldn’t hazard any real guesses on the 2004 results until after the presidential primaries.
Predictions I will make:
There will not be a Nader-like threat on the left to siphon away votes in 2004. I’m guessing democrats have been “Perot-ed” enough to learn their lesson.
Bush will get the Republican nomination unchallenged.
Cheney will not be on the ticket.
Gore will at least be in the primaries.
If McCain runs as an independent, there is a whole lot of trouble for Bush. If McCain runs as a democrat, he is dead in the water. McCain will not be offered the Republican VP slot in 2004, nor would he accept it.
Which is what I said in the 4th post of this thread.
I’d like to repeat how risky that would be for Bush. If the public gets convinced it’s a war for the benefit of re-election, and not justified, he could get HAMMERED.
Note: although I said it could be done, I wasn’t advocating it. I find it reprehensible to wage war for political gain.
Aside to minty, I wonder what you think all of this could amount to.
This poll from today’s Times, is kind of interesting. Some of it supports the toasted Bush sentiments of this thread; but some it shows just how unpredictable people can be.
On the other hand…
Freedom: “There will not be a Nader-like threat on the left to siphon away votes in 2000”
I’d bet the farm on that one any day of the week.
Hey Dems, if you’re pinning your hopes on Gore, don’t set those hopes too high. Gore is the Adlai Stevenson of his age. He has “Presidential Loser” tattooed all over him, except to his hard core supporters, and there aren’t enough of you to elect him by yourselves.
I’ll give you all my sleeper, as I have once before in a similar thread: Russ Feingold for the Democratic Nomination in '04.