His ratings are inexorably going down… slowly but steadily. Even capturing Saddam seems to have given Bush only a temporary boost to his ratings. The media coverage of Kerry’s victories at last have given the democrats a bit of limelight. The Kay report duly messing up those lies…
If all things continue Bush will be hard pressed by election time… probably behind in the polls too. Even if the democractic nominee has some dirty laundry, the ratings seem to reflect a search for alternative to deficit dubya more than enthusiasm for the democrats. (hard to get fired up with them…)
So how will Bush try to turn around these figures ? I figure he won’t attack his foe directly… since his lackluster military record might make him appear mean. Leaks to the press with dirty info shall be chosen method of attack by both sides probably. This leaves what options ?
Bin Laden captured a week before election ?
More Tax Cuts ?
Aircraft Carrier foto op gimmicks ?
Other options ?
I beleive firmly in some kind of last moment “big breakthrough” in the War on Terror gimmick. If Bin Laden is captured today I bet Bush will keep it under wraps to present him near election day.
Am I wrong… and he will openly blast his opponent or not ? If defeat is imminent will he resort to low blows ? Or he will still lead the polls and simply avoid debates and exposure ?
I suspect that the Republicans are counting on spending their almost $300 Million on extensive advertising that will swamp the opposition. Of course, incumbents always have the advantage in being able to manipulate certain events, but incumbents also get tarred with responsibility for things they can’t control, too. But money talks, and lots of advertising will be a tough barrier once the conventions are over and the serious campaigning starts.
He doesn’t have to do much. Kerry has become the de facto Democrat candidate because all the others self destructed. Soon even the Democrats will begin to feel buyer’s remorse and long for another candidate. If the best candidate is as charisma negative as Kerry what hope do they have. His speeches are less convincing than the average high school debater.
Bush’s military record is meaningless - he has troops in the field and I can’t recall anyone losing while being commander-in-chief of an active defence service. In fact 1972 and 1988 seem to prove that anti-war candidates won’t win while American children are serving overseas in a war zone. If Bush is smart he will find some reason to escalate US involvement.
Ahem- remember 1968? LBJ couldn’t get his own party’s nomination while our boys were at war. Of course, he’ll try to pin the scarlet “L” on Kerry’s shirt. Probably try to use gay marriage as an issue. Other than that, he is, as his dad would say,in deep doo-doo.
Big bucks matter, but Kerry can match or beat him in that out of his wife’s petty cash. Attack ads will form the heart of the Bush campaign, based around Poppy’s old tactic of repeating the words “Massachusetts” and “Liberal” as curses. Expect a lot of overblown charges about Kerry’s hypocrisy and sold-out-ness from his Senate voting record, in an attempt to keep him explaining things instead of actively convincing people he’s the better choice.
But last time, the positive part of Bush’s campaign was based on his alleged friendliness and uniting spirit, and his alleged morality (and he still lost). Now, what positives does he have to point to that will both resonate and hold up to an opponent’s scrutiny? Kerry isn’t as naive as Dukakis, and has more resources too. It’s gonna be ugly.
don’t ask, there have actually been few periods in the last century when US troops haven’t been in danger somewhere. Only operations the size of Vietnam or better have mattered electorally, though. Incumbents aren’t often defeated anyway, so there are few examples to choose from.
I think Rove & Co. are probably a little alarmed at the unprecedented voter turnout in the democratic primaries thus far. They’re going to have to find a way to get their base at least as fired up. I can see this kind of voter enthusiasm carrying over into the general election.
I predict the following:
A condition “red” on or near election day.
Debates that allow the candidates to prescreen the questions to be asked.
Vicious attacks on Kerry’s (presumably) wife.
Another round of checks from the IRS, endorsed by GWB himself.
The People being swamped with ads crying out how un-American it is to question a commander-in-chief in a time of war.
Lots of bible thumpin’.
The usual dirty tricks, in an effort to turn off the electorate.
Bush will use the $100 plus million in campaign contributions for TV ads full of:
Distortions
Half-truths
Three-quarter Lies
Complete Falsehoods
goddamned Lies
cheerful use of the 3,000 that died 9/11 as campaign props
cynical use of the United States Armed Forces as campaign props
If they nominate Kerry, the Democrats will have effectively written off the South. Kerry himself has implied such. Even Florida will be out of reach, IMO.
This makes Bush’s job pretty easy. He doesn’t have to spend any money down South (except for Florida), and can instead focus the great bulk of his $100M+ bankroll on just a few swing states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, New Mexico, and a few others.
Of course, we may expect the usual misleading, fact-twisting, jingoistic ad campaign from the Republicans, and it will be played very heavily in those swing states.
Meanwhile, Republican talking heads will be busy trying to distract voters from the tax code, the war, and job losses with so-called “wedge issues.”
As usual, the media (which love controversy, and hate boring economics) will play right along:
“Never mind the dividend tax, Mr. Kerry. How do you feel about gay marriage?”
**spoke-, ** you really need to get off that “Kerry disdains the South” bit. The one thing he said in that regard cannot be most reasonably interpreted that way. Based at least on the SC results, not many of your co-regionalists agree with you, either.
E72521, Rove also knows that the most effective way to get the vote out is anger. Other GOP campaigns, including both Bushes, have used that to their own benefit very well. But now, there is a lot of anger *at * the GOP guy, and there won’t be much solid basis to manufacture it against Kerry or any other plausible nominee (though they’ll try their hardest as a diversionary tactic). Higher turnouts favor Democrats historically as it is, and that anti-Bush anger will also even hold down alienated-GOP-voter turnout.
I didn’t say he “disdains” the South. I said he has written off the South. Which he has. He plainly said it is a “mistake to look South.” His words. And you know what? If John Kerry is the nominee, he’s right. John Kerry (as opposed to the other Democratic candidates) cannot win in the South. Do you really think Kerry will waste his money campaigning down here?
You count funny. With endorsements of South Carolina’s leading Democratic politicians, with full “bandwagon effect” coverage in the national media, Kerry finished 15 points behind John Edwards. And that was in a primary, where Democratic loyalists are doing the voting. Do you really think John Kerry has even the slightest appeal to the Southern swing voter? I can assure you he does not.
Bush will use lots of sleazy inuendo, character assassination, and other dirty politicking to win the election. He will only focus on the issues when they are clearly in his favor. He will use his incumbency to shamelessly promote his cause.
In short, he will use every tactic that both the Democracts and Republicans have used in the past and will use again in this campaign.
Of course Pubs will claim that the Dems are more sleazy and the Dems will claim the opposite. I’ll be ignoring both claims and will find that it’s really not that hard to wade thru the crap on both sides and figure out which candidate stands for what.
w wins SC by convincing the electorate that they’re safer, their water and air is cleaner, they haven’t lost more jobs per capita than any other state, and turning Kerry’s one liner into Yankee hate speech.
Everything hinges on the economy. If it gets worse, Kerry’s a shoo-in. If it stays the same, it’s a toss-up, with maybe the edge to Kerry. If it improves dramatically — Bush in a walk (and I’m on my way to Canada).
This doesn’t mean I think the economy is the be-all and end-all of Presidential politics — if Bush hadn’t screwed up so spectacularly in so many other areas lately, I think he’d be a shoo-in even if the economy remained unchanged. He’s so gosh-darned likeable, don’t you know? And even if you don’t, he’s got a gazillion-dollar propaganda account to convince you of it.
But the truth is, for a lot of voters, the economy is the be-all and end-all. Given our relentlessly materialistic society, it’s an understandable point of view, I suppose. But does a merrily perking economy really excuse, say, an absolutely abysmal record on civil rights, the environment, international relations, corruption, cronyism, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.?
I’m deathly afraid too many voters will say “hell, yes!”
One could always point out to them that Hitler pulled Germany out of the Great Depression a lot faster than Roosevelt did in America…but I doubt if it’d do much good…
Based on what I see in rural, small C conservative, tight-fisted Iowa I suspect that there is a deep rooted dissatisfaction with the present Administration. I saw this most clearly at the caucus for my rural township. Of the 22 people who appeared no less than 8 changed their party registration at that night (you can do this). Of those eight, one was a Green Party member (a middle aged former hippy chick) but the remaining seven were people who have been stout Republicans for years if not for life—real Ronal Reagan people. So far as I can tell they were all sincere in abandoning the President this time around simply because they believed that they had been lied to and mislead by the President about his objectives, and were disenchanted with the course of the economy and generally convinced that the President was taking the nation down the wrong path.
It seems to me that in a country as closely divided as we were in 2000 the defection of even a comparative few in this Republican stronghold bodes real trouble for the President’s reelection campaign no matter how much money it has to spend for TV advertising, no matter how much press space he gets just because he is the incumbent.
I’m not going to say that it will be easy to work a regime change. I expect the presidential campaign to ugly beyond anything we have seen. I fully expect the Administration’s tactics to reflect its desperation to retain power and for the Democratic nominee to, of necessity, respond in kind.
The unfortunate thing is that in slightly over three years the President has put the nation in a hole that it is going to be very difficult do climb out of.
Kerry might win if he can portray himself as moderate, thoughtful, and courageous. In other words, make him different from Bush.
I think Americans long for the times we had when Clinton was President, minus his personal failings. The more Kerry associates his candidacy with Clinton’s, the better chance he has.
But the South is a problem. He pretty much has to take either Clark (from Arkansas) or Edwards (the Carolinas) as his running mate, then figure out how to wrest just a couple of Confederate states out of the red and into the blue. Remember, Clinton-Gore '96 won five Southern states, so a Democrat can win there.
And one last thing: Bush has been thought of as vulnerable or an underdog in every election he’s been in. And yet he keeps winning them. It’s a huge mistake to underestimate Dubya and his minions, especially with the warchest he’s built up. Just ask Ann Richards or Al Gore.
Personally, I think it’s an uphill climb for Kerry, or whomever the Democratic nominee ends up being. It probably all hinges on the South. If Americans keep coming home from Iraq in bodybags (it nauseates me to say that) while newspapers keep using phrases like “record deficits”, then Dixie isn’t so formidable. But if Osama is captured or killed this year and newspapers instead use phrases like “improved employment outlook”, then Kerry is definitely sunk.
