Posted on 12/13/2003 7:26:02 AM PST by dixie sass
With the 2004 presidential election coming up one year from this week, let's use information and analyses from prior editions of this column to predict who might win.
President Bush will be the Republican nominee, of course, so let's focus on the Democratic field of candidates. We were ahead of the curve months ago when we revealed a survey showing former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was the surprise leader of the pack. Many thought Dean's quick rise would be brief, but clearly, he is the real thing.
In another column, we noted the sudden emergence of Wesley Clark mania and questioned whether his political inexperience and lack of a clear, well-articulated message might make him more a flash in the pan than an enduring, middle-of-the-road alternative for Democratic voters. To date, that assessment has proven more or less on the mark.
Absent a major misstep -- or a sudden manifestation of charisma by one of his Democratic opponents -- Dean's early momentum makes him the odds-on favorite to face Bush. Remember that the nature of the Democratic Party's presidential nomination process heavily favors the selection of more left-leaning delegates to the national convention. Advantage, Dean.
So assuming that Dean will be the nominee, let's move on to another recent column. Even before conservative Democratic Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia revealed to talk-TV superstar Sean Hannity that Miller would be supporting Republican Bush for president, we alerted readers to be on the lookout for loud repercussions to the release of Miller's new book, "A National Party No More." In it, he argues that the Democratic Party is held hostage by liberal special interest groups that force the party to take positions and nominate candidates out of the political mainstream. Miller makes no bones about his belief that Dean is Exhibit A in illustrating the point.
So Bush's re-election is inevitable, right? After all, the economy is clearly on an upswing that even the most virulent naysayers now admit is at least partly the result of the Bush tax cuts. This newfound optimism may even bolster the Christmas retail season and sustain the bullish stock market.
As for Iraq: Yes, the situation is deteriorating, but even prior to the initial invasion, we reported that most Americans expected the conflict to last a year or longer. Hence, the public's unwillingness -- so far -- to let bad news from Baghdad cast a shadow on renewed good times at home.
Still, a wrinkle remains in this upbeat forecast for the president, and it's less about the content of his political stands than their presentation. In short, the wrinkle is the news media. Look at the measurements they often use to measure the nation's progress and well-being.
On the economy, newsrooms across the nation report largely on the number of jobs lost in the past three years. That won't change. No matter how high the stock market climbs or consumer optimism grows, the economic measuring stick the average reader or viewer of mass media will be subjected to over the coming year will be the number of unemployed workers. And as we have noted before in this column space, the export of service-sector jobs to Asia and other foreign lands will be drummed up by Dean and many in the media as a crack in America's economic armor.
The story of Iraq, too, will be framed by those reporting it. When the cover of Newsweek magazine suggests the war has become "Bush's $87 Billion Mess" -- as if Saddam Hussein's genocidal mania had nothing to do with it -- it is plain enough the war will dog the president through next November and probably beyond. Less likely to make headlines will be stories like the one that aired last weekend on MSNBC-TV. It showed a large group of young Iraqis using broken English to unanimously endorse Bush over Hussein.
By November 2004, political and economic reality may win out for the president. The economy likely will be at its strongest in several years. And Bush's forceful and sustained response to Sept. 11 has possibly discouraged other rogue nations and terrorist groups from pursuing their murderous ways -- or at least tied them down far from U.S. shores.
But in politics, reality and perception don't always overlap exactly. Dean or another Democratic nominee might be able to parlay economic and foreign policy discontent into enough support to make it a close election next year. My own best guess is that Bush will win in a bitter and potentially tighter-than-expected race. And that he will return to office with the respect, if not always the gratitude, of the American people.
I think you're taking his analogy a little more strongly than it was intended.A person can avoid having this happen by avoiding needless, over the top analogies and outlandish rhetoric.
If one wants to be critical, be critical. I doubt that will cause many problems. I have been critical several times over many months, and only once did anyone give me guff about it (and that person was as easily handled as Rusty is easily handled).
But if one wants to overstate their case, one is likely to be called on it and categorized. You might not like that, but it is what happens and I am not sure it is wrong that it does happen.
I can understand your being upset on most of those positions but on Medicare, he campaigned on a drug benefit in 2000. He went up and down Florida stressing that he supported it. I'm mystified about people feeling "betrayed" or whatever on that. On education also it was clear in 2000 he supported increased spending, although the shape of the bill that he signed had a lot less reform than we expected. CFR on the other hand was a reversal of his position in 2000.
Demagoguery indeed.
I was "being untruthful when I tried to portray those criticisms as a willingness to elect a Democrat"? Are you series?
My friend, [I use that term as Senators call their brethern] it is one thing to criticize Bush, quite another to be under the delusion that a move to a "third" party [whatever one that is] is a realistic option in todays climate. To then compound that by indicating it is somehow of importance to anyone of any intelligence is, shall I say, demagogic .
Can Dean win Penn, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida, and Washington State besides the dem leaning states(Including Illinois)? That's enough right there and doesn't include swing states like Arkansas, Oregon, Louisiana, Arizona, Nevada, New Mex, West VA, New Hampshire, Missouri, Ohio, and Colorado?
They won't, at least not until someone takes all of the "rose-colored" glasses out and smushes them to smithereens!
Bush lost NJ and MD by about 16 percentage points. If he's winning states like this in 2004, that means he's got around a 64% approval rating, and he's on his way to a 45-state landslide.
Bush lost four states, if I'm not mistaken, by fewer than 30,000 total votes
While I agree that Bush is in good shape to contest a lot of the close states he lost in 2000, the margin of Gore's victories in some of these states is deceptively small. Ralph Nader got more than 5% in Oregon and Minnesota, and more than 3.5% in Wisconsin and New Mexico. I think we can safely assume that some of Nader's support will transfer to the Democrat in 2004, so Bush will have slightly more ground to make up there.
Yes, you were being untruthful when you tried to portray those criticisms as willingness to elect a Democrat. Yes, I'm serious (but probably not "series").
As I stated in my first reply, you needed to read the post before you responded. The guy said that if he lived in a swing state, he'd vote for President Bush to try to deny that state to the Democrat. As it is, he lives in a state that is so heavily Democratic that President Bush has no chance and his vote won't have an effect. Because of those facts, his consideration of a third party candidate does no harm to the conservative cause. He explained that situation very reasonably. You may not like his choice, but he wasn't trying to be a demagogue, flame the president, or advocate electing a Democrat.
On the other hand, you either didn't bother to read his post, didn't have what it takes to understand the post, or are willfully distorting it. Whatever the case, you started with your "Bush is satan" sarcasm. I thought your sarcasm amounted to demogoguery and said so. You also refused to acknowledge that the poster's intent in voting third party was not to elect a Democrat. It's nice that you support the president, but catty attacks on anyone who doesn't follow the party line exactly don't help your cause or make anyone more likely to vote for Republicans.
Actually, it's a small number of the Perot votes that turned the tide in '92. Perot received much of his support from states that went to President Bush anyway. Those votes did no harm at all. He may have even helped GHW Bush win a few states by splitting the pro-abortion vote. In some states that went to Clinton, Perot voters were union people who probably would have split evenly between President Bush and Clinton. In a few states, Perot probably made a difference, but I no longer believe he was the primary difference of that campaign.
President Bush broke an important promise and then ran a lousy campaign in '92. Scapegoating Perot is a favorite fallback for Republicans who don't want to learn the lessons of that election, but the outcome likely would have been no different if Perot hadn't joined the race. We can't betray our principles and run bad campaigns and still expect to win.
WFTR
Bill
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