Frankly, I think it’ll come down to pitching.
What?
God, how I would like to believe this.
In 2000, I told people, “I hope Bush gets the nomination instead of McCain because Bush is an ignoramus and Al Gore will make mincemeat out of him in the debates.”
Well, shame on me for thinking that the “debates” have any substance. Bush was able to say anything he damn well wanted and got away with it. When Gore cited hard figures, Bush called it “fuzzy math.” The damn press let him get away with it as it did all during the campaign and since.
He’ll do the same to Kerry. As the knowledgeable and competant Kerry haplessly tries to address complex issues in his alloted one minute, Dubya will toss out one liners, lies, and evasions as he projects his best plain-folks and down home persona. People will “like” him, the pundits will all agree and find Kerry to be “distant” and far to cerebral for the “folks”.
Jesus, I hope this assesment is really wrong, but I fear it is not.
Actually in polls the public believed that Gore did better in debates one and three. He only got massacred in debate two because his idiot advisors told him that he would do better to act like a wuss. Now of course the chattering heads on CNN/Faux News/MSNBC informed their audiences that Gore had come across as hard-headed and mean-spirited after debate one; that was the line they had been feeding people since the start of the campaign. But those who watched the debate for themselves rather than just letting a cable news idiot summarize it for them thought Gore did a good job.
As I said, it depends on whehter Kerry can ignore that sort of nonsense and stick to his guns even in the face of vapid accusations.
Are you serious?
I’ve personally seen or read extensive coverage on CNN, Fox, the Washington Post, and the NY Times, and I wasn’t even looking very hard.
Quite serious, but then I’m not American. Buried on the inside pages at best in much of the British press. I think the Telegraph (right-wing paper) had one opinion piece, and a minor article on the BBC News website, but basically, it’s ignored here.
But I think he’s going to have a much more difficult time this time. In 2000 all Bush had to do was act like a regular guy and convince people that Gore was a nerd. In 2004, Bush has a four year record as President which means there will be numerous opportunities for Kerry to target (not a particular slight against Bush; it’s a vulnerability all incumbent presidents face).
Plus most candidates study the last campaign to avoid the mistakes of the past. Kerry surely has studied Gore’s campaign and has learned from his mistakes. And as Kerry’s running against the same person, the tactics he’s forming will presumedly be on target.
Then there’s the point that Josh Marshall (of Talking Points Memo) has made repeatedly–the incumbent almost never gains ground among undecided voters in the few months before the election. People have seen the incumbent in action and have generally made their minds up about him already.
If this is true, Bush is hosed.
The media will make all the difference between now and then. Notice how Howard Dean went from being a sure thing to being a joke practically overnight, when the media took an excited speech at a rally and turned it into the ravings of a madman. They can do the same to either Bush or Kerry between now and then, and it’s impossible to say which. I think Bush’s free ride from the press is finally coming to an end, and with a lot of major outlets feeling stung by the runup to the war, I don’t think Bush can expect blind cooperation from anywhere but Fox News and the Moonie Times.
My apologies for being Amerocentric (or whatever the word is). There’s been at least one poster on this board who is insisting that the Swift Boat story is being underplayed or covered up by the “liberal” media despite the abundant US coverage of this story. There’s no reason that the UK media should cover every minor dust-up in the US campaign, and in the greater scheme of things, the issues in this controversy are meaningless, it’s just who will end up with more mud sticking to them when this is over.
I’d say there’s a slim chance (maybe 1 in 10) that Kerry will get 52%, and practically no chance at all that Bush will. But I’m hoping…
I’ve been wondering about this thread lately. What’s the recap on the final bets? Is the window closed?
I’ve posted it before and will again: Kerry 272, Bush 266. You read it here first. Well, unless you read it the other places I posted it.
Bush WILL get Florida, whether he deserves to or not. Jeb Bush et al. are going to make damned sure of that. But Kerry will make up for it with Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Bush 282. But I could just as easily pick Kerry 282 at this point. I think this one has become a complete toss-up. That doesn’t mean it WILL be, but if it isn’t it’ll be because we didn’t understand what was going on. The polls may simply be completely wrong, and it could go either way.
I was playing with the elctoral vote map at the LA Times yesterday. They leave many more “white” states than the electoral-vote.com website does. You can then roll over the states to see the latest poll numbers, and click to award the state to Bush or Kerry. By giving each state to the candiate that led (however narrowly) in the most recent poll, I got 269 for Kerry, and 265 for Bush. Hawaii was a dead heat, with, you guessed it, 4 electoral votes.