Posted on 09/19/2004 3:12:43 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Democrats need to get a grip on themselves. John Kerry is not down for the count. He still has a good chance to capture the presidency on Nov. 2, even though the percentage of Democrats who believe that has fallen from 66 to 43, according to the latest poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. This race is likely to remain tight right down to the wire, with the lead shifting back and forth. President Bush has gained momentum in recent weeks as Kerry was thrown on the defensive by the swift boat attacks. But there's no reason for Democrats to panic six weeks out. The presidential debates, which could tip the election either way, are still ahead, and events, especially in Iraq, could alter the political equation overnight.
In many ways, Kerry has been a terrible presidential candidate - don't even ask me to explain his position on the Iraq war - who for too long has offered voters little more than his war biography and nuance. But he is the only alternative to President Bush, and that's why the 2004 election is still in play and why the Bush campaign should be worried.
The postconvention polls should be read with caution and the pundits of doom and gloom ignored. If Kerry wins the presidency, it will not be because the Clintonites rescued his campaign or because Kerry transformed himself into a brilliant and charismatic campaigner. It will because American voters decide they do not want to risk another four years of Bush's leadership at home or abroad. A majority of them are anxious about the economy and believe the war in Iraq was a costly mistake that has made the world a more dangerous place. They may not like Kerry or agree with him on most issues, but casting a vote for the Massachusetts Democrat is the only way they have to evict Bush from the Oval Office and change the nation's course.
Republicans want this election to be about national security, where polls show Bush holds the political advantage. More voters trust Bush than Kerry to lead the fight against terrorism. That Kerry has been unable to change that perception is one of the major failures of his campaign so far, and it's largely because Kerry has been unable to give a coherent answer on why he supported the Iraq war that he now criticizes as "the wrong war, in the wrong place" but one he still supports.
Even voters who disagree with Bush's policies see him as a resolute leader. Kerry can't compete on resolve, but he can remind voters that Bush's resolve has led us into a quagmire in Iraq and complicated the U.S. struggle against terrorism. As Philip Gordon of the Brookings Institution wrote recently, ". . . resolve in itself is not a strategy, and plenty of resolute leaders - Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, for example - have led their nations to ruin by pursuing the wrong course. Bush's resolve, moreover, has been accompanied by what many perceive to be arrogant, nationalistic rhetoric that has alienated allies American needs and provoked potential enemies around the world."
The question Kerry should be asking the American people in this election is not whether they are better off than four years ago but whether they feel safer since their "resolute" commander in chief led the nation into an unnecessary war.
Kerry appears to be finally pulling out of Vietnam and engaging the president on Iraq, although he doesn't have a lot of room to maneuver given his incoherence on the issue.
Speaking to the National Guard convention in Las Vegas last week, Kerry accused Bush of deceiving the American people by presenting an optimistic picture of the war. The "hard truth," Kerry told his audience, is that "the mission in Iraq is in serious trouble."
He went on: "I believe you deserve a president who isn't going to gild the truth, or gild our national security with politics, who is not going to ignore his own intelligence, who isn't going to live in a different world of spin, who will give the American people the truth, not a fantasy world of spin."
Those are serious charges to make against the president of the United States - lying to the nation about the course of the war, playing politics with national security. If Kerry wants to play the role of truth-teller in this campaign, he owes us the truth about whether he now regrets his vote for the war. He says he would cast the same vote today knowing everything that he knows now. Does anyone really believe that? If Kerry is serious, then he does not deserve to be president. Truth be told, I would bet that even George W. Bush, knowing what he knows now, wishes he had never started this war.
Philip Gailey's e-mail address is gailey@sptimes.com
Is that photoshopped?
"NotBush - NotCheney 2004"
A Girly America
Kerry looking for new advantage on Iraq***... With some Kerry advisers convinced he cannot win a debate on whether the United States should have gone to war, given Bush's relentless attacks on Kerry for shifting his positions on the war, the Massachusetts senator has settled on two-phase plan to refocus the debate. Aides say he will first challenge the president's optimistic assessment of conditions in Iraq and then draw a sharp contrast with Bush over getting the United States out of the country within four years....***
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Anyone with a brain in their head, knows terrorists are going to increase attacks leading up to the election in order to help Kerry. They want a friend in the WH, a man who will let the U.N. tell him how to protect and defend the U.S.
We need more like Bush.
His main disadvantage is that he's still John Kerry.
RATs and liberals got what they deserved when they nominated Kerry. Now they're unhappy and pinning their hopes on a miracle debate performance by Nuancyboy? Well, Rathergate didn't work, four years of Bushbashing, media collusion didn't work. I guess they're right. It's down to the debates, although if the Oct. Swiftboat ad is as devastating as promised, Kerry can debate himself to the moon and it won't matter. He's still toast.
Yeah, how dare America defend itself. We're a rogue nation and we'd better not forget it. So there!
This is in stark contrast to the John Kerry I first saw in person on April 22, 1971, when he electrified the nation with his passionate and compelling anti-Vietnam War testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. At the time I was Sen. George D. Aiken's legislative assistant. Aiken was the ranking Republican on the committee whose members mostly opposed the war. Democratic chairman Bill Fulbright, the acerbic former college professor from Arkansas, had just launched a month-long hearing on "Legislative Proposals Relating to the War in Southeast Asia." At the last moment, Fulbright invited Kerry, a young former Navy officer from Massachusetts who was the leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. ***
I've never seen anything like it. Whenever these people discuss the Swifties, Forged Memos, or Kerry's convention and campaign strategy, they start screaming, shouting, and totally lose emotional control.
The real signs of disarray are not just with Kerry and his campaign. Listen to Dem talking heads on TV and you can hear the rationalizations, the despair, and the signs of resignation to the inevitable. They still have a chance. If George Bush starts drooling and taking off his clothes during the debates Kerry MIGHT have a chance. Even a one in a trillion chance is still a chance.
I'm amused that a journalist like Mr. Gailey isn't bothered by Kerry's refusal to give a simple press conference.
Hehehehe, and it's just going to get worse as the clock ticks inexorably down. They're already holding a wake and wondering what went wrong. If they continue to wring their hands and whine now, RATs won't bother to vote, and the number of dead who climb out of their coffins on Nov. 2 will grow exponentially. Dawn of the Dead, anyone?
I didn't hold much (if any) hope for him winning and thus didn't have a lot of emotional investment involved. It would have been nice if he won, but I wasn't devastated.
The dems, on the other hand, are rabid to win. Most of them will probably have to be sedated when their guy bites the dust.
First of all, a word of thanks to CW. In recent times, I've frequently opened an interesting article to find that it was posted by CW. You are doing a great job of combing the net, finding and posting good stuff for your fellow FReepers. I and am sure many others here appreciate it very much.
OK, now, to this editorial. As others have suggested, this guy is confusing his dreams with reality. I'm not saying it's over, but when he says the race "is likely to remain tight," that implies it IS tight. And right now it's not. W has a 5-10% lead, and his lead in the EC is even more commanding. It could change, but for the time being, it ain't tight.
Same applies to his assertion that the lead is likely to swing back and forth. Again, could happen. But 'likely'? The dynamics of this race and the lessons of history suggest that isn't so. The candidate with this kind of lead a week after Labor Day rarely relinquishes it.
And note that the poor, befuddled liberal hasn't dared to poke his nose into the state polls, where Kerry is fighting for his electoral life even in traditionally deep-blue states.
Time for Pool Boy to stop worrying and embrace the future. It's spelled GWB.
OMG, that is hilarious--I think I'll save it and torment every liberal I can show it to after election day.
Bush has a bigger advantage, he's not Kerry
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