I was watching the GWB make a speech on the economy today. It seems like the economy is going to be the key issue of the campaign in 2004. It set me to wondering…
Assume 2 things for a minute:
The war on terror and the reconstruction of Iraq continue to enjoy strong popular support in the USA.
The economy rebounds and the recession ends.
Let’s remove these 2 issues from the table for the sake of discussion. I know you Republicans would like for them to remain out there assuming they go well, but lets say they just become past issues that have gone reasonably well and no one can claim responsibility for them or bemoan the failed performance of the other…
What is left? After those issues, what do you think will resonate with the American voter?
Health care reform?
ANWR?
Immigration?
Elver poaching?
Corporate ethic reform?
Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
I posted in GD because I am sure there will be disagreement, rather than in IMHO. Mods move it if you must, but I hope it stays here.
Kind of like the classic tacky joke, “Well, aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”
Howsabout dealing with North Korea?
What’s elver poaching? Is someone hunting elves without a license, or are people hunting down Elvis impersonators? Granted, both might be worthwhile given the circumstances, but we need to understand what this is before we can take a firm stand on it.
Also, being singlehandedly responsible for a reform in voting practices and technology.
Well, we still have the Bushies stacking the courts with right-wing judges, trying to undermine environmental protections, and being in bed with the usual suspects on the Christian right.
If Iraq goes south on the Pubbies, they don’t have a lifeboat next year.
Perhaps I’m being unfair to you, but there’s something about the OP itself that I find …disquieting.
The problem is that the OP asks not what is best for the US, for the elective process, for the electorate. It asks how will Americans meet a possible Election Marketing situation, how will the Election Consumers view the spin of the candidate?
Will they want Coke or Pepsi? Will hot-pants be ‘In’ next year, and are skirts going up or down? Is George W the next Furby, and will he bow with a opening weekend that tops the current box office behemoth, Matrix reloaded?!?
Sam, are you interested in the issues you listed as issues or just as markers on the scoreboard of obstacles President George W. Bush can or cannot finesse in a dash to be Sole Survivor and win the million dollars?
Is it all a marketing game for you?
All that said, GWB is toast if he wears a blue suit with a feather boa. That would be sooo 2003.
But each side has to have a drum to bang. I am just asking, what if the current drum (Iraq reconstruction, war on terror, economy) gets taken away. They have to say something at the rallies, what will it be?
I think you’re being too hard on the OP, whoever it is. Electioneering is different from governing, and does follow its own distinct dynamics that really are best described in marketing terms. The people who run campaigns do seem to be interested more in the game, and in the rush playing and winning gives them, than in what follows. For instance, James Carville and Mary Matalin are such soulmates that they wound up married, even after running opposing presidential campaigns, but they both seemed to be putting the reasons it mattered that their candidate won beneath the winning itself.
And that isn’t even totally deplorable - if you don’t win office, it doesn’t matter what you were planning to do with it anyway.
The noble tradition of selling a Presidential candidate as something he ain’t goes back at least as far as William Henry Harrison (“Old Tippacanoe”). Presented as a backwoods Indian fighter, sitting by the log cabin drinking hard cider, Harrison was, in fact, the son of one of the wealthiest men in the country and the governor of the Indiana Territory. His house near Vincennes is pretty palatial and he hadn’t been an Indian fighter in more than 20 years when elected. Lot of good it did him…he died after a month.
Issues? Character? The candidates may as well be soap powder.
Many people are already decided. I know how I am going to vote in EVERY general election.
Others decide basically on the two issues msmith537 offers.
If those two items are off the table as the hypothetical in OP offers, then people will vote on who they like best.
I think Bush would beat Kerry (as a hypothetical opponent) in a “likeability” contest.
Most of the Bush haters, hate him based on his policy and his strategy.
The people who decide based “personality” do not delve far enough into the issues to use these to decide whether they like a guy. If they did, then they would decide on the issues themselves and not personality.
If Gore had had a better personality, he would have creamed Bush.
But he didn’t, and I would guess he lost a lot of votes because of it.
The same could be true in this hypothetical. If the two main issues that people care about are off the table (and they NEVER are but for the sake of discussion, I pretend), then I think America remembers Bush standing on the rubble are landing the plane and vote for him.
