Bush vs. Kerry: It will be more interesting than you think

The Weekly Standard ^ | 02/09/04 | Jeffrey Bell & Frank Cannon

[Pokey78]

THE COME-FROM-BEHIND triumph of John Kerry in Iowa and New Hampshire does more than make the Massachusetts senator a prohibitive favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination. It marks the defeat of Howard Dean's antiwar, left-populist rebellion by the quintessential candidate of the Democratic establishment.

For Democrats, this is likely to mean a sophisticated, predictable, low-risk national campaign, somewhat analogous to Bob Dole's 1996 challenge of President Clinton. A Kerry nomination is precisely the kind of result aimed for by Democratic chairman Terry McAuliffe in his drive to front-load the primaries, assuring an early nominee who will have plenty of time to unify the party. In a bonus for McAuliffe, the prospective nominee opted out of his federal matching-funds subsidy, exempting him from the anachronistically low fundraising limits assigned to nomination fights. The Kerry campaign is free to spend as much as it can raise between now and the party convention.

For President Bush and his political team, the strategic landscape has become far simpler. Fallen by the wayside are such divergent scenarios as a centrist New Democrat trying to pick off a few of the red states, an anti-political man on horseback, an Old Left protectionist appeal to the agricultural and industrial heartland, and (within a very short time, we believe) a '60s-style challenge to America's role in the world.

Instead there will be an adroit, cautious, experienced nominee whose method of uniting his party will be to incorporate, at least rhetorically, some elements of all these Democratic strains, keeping open as many tactical options as possible. What most infuriates Howard Dean about John Kerry is the latter's tendency to alternate between the two possible answers to such seemingly binary questions as President Bush's invasion of Iraq. Dean, like Kerry's other opponents, has watched helplessly as the front-runner alternately takes hawkish and dovish stances, depending on the headlines of the week.

A Bush strategy keyed on labeling Kerry an extreme liberal will be far from easy. Many voters are more apt to see the sonorous Kerry as a judicious moderate than as a wild-eyed liberal adept at wearing a moderate's mask. Kerry will often pay lip service to the idea of the election as a stark issues referendum, but in practice he can be expected to resist or try to finesse most of the president's attempts to define the content of such a choice.

This is why the Kerry candidacy represents, at least potentially, a successful Democratic riposte to the Bush team's effort to achieve a Republican realignment. In an article in these pages just after the 2002 elections ("The Beginning of the Bush Epoch?" Dec. 9, 2002), we noted that such a realignment is historically implausible because of the tendency of popular post-World War II presidents seeking a second election victory to take few risks once they have opened up a lead over their challengers. This accounts for the phenomenon of "lonely landslides"--few if any down-ticket coattails--for such decisive second victories as Eisenhower (1956), Nixon (1972), Reagan (1984), and Clinton (1996).

On the other side of the ledger, though, were two elements thrown into high relief by the historic GOP gains in the 2002 elections. First was the unusual willingness of George W. Bush to risk his political standing by intervening on behalf of weaker Republican candidates down the ballot. This underpinning of realignment has if anything deepened since 2002. To a degree unique for a sitting president heading into his last campaign, Bush and his political aides have intertwined their formidable organizing efforts with those of state parties and contested candidacies all over the country, even in states not in play in the Electoral College.

The second factor favoring realignment, we argued, was the syndrome of "Bush hatred"--the tendency of prominent Democrats to take their various disagreements with the president to a level of implacability that made them look hysterical, while Bush came across as something of a mild-mannered innocent victim. This set the stage for Bush's outmaneuvering of then Majority Leader Tom Daschle in the 2002 Senate elections on such issues as homeland security.

This is where the Democrats seem less likely to repeat their mistakes of Bush's first two years. Their minority leaders in Congress, in part because they are minority leaders, loomed less large as obstructionists in 2003 than they did the year before. And while loathing of Bush has far from disappeared in the Democratic presidential race, Kerry's gaining of the upper hand is likely to put intelligent limits on Bush hatred in the presidential campaign from now on. As an obvious example, Kerry would never make Dean's blunder of seeming to begrudge the success of U.S. forces in the capture of Saddam Hussein. So assuming Kerry and other prominent Democrats manage to avoid such lapses, they may be positioned to reap the benefits of anti-Bush polarization without the disadvantages.

The strategic challenge Bush now faces can be traced back to one of his greatest strengths as a candidate: his ability to get himself underestimated by Democratic opponents. There have been two pivotal races in Bush's career where he was running even or slightly behind his Democratic opponent heading into candidate debates: his 1994 challenge of Texas governor Ann Richards and the 2000 race against Vice President Al Gore. In both instances, Bush "won" these debates, took the lead in polls, and went on to victory in November.

Richards and Gore have the following things in common: Compared with Bush, they were far more experienced candidates, they were considered superb debaters, they were widely favored among political elites of both parties to out-debate Bush, and when the opposite occurred they were thrown badly off stride. Unlike Richards, candidate Gore made a recovery and nearly won the 2000 election. But even today, one wonders whether Gore has fully recovered from the shock of losing his debates with Bush.

How did Bush gain the upper hand against these opponents? (1) He treated his opponents with great respect, even in the face of hostility--in Gore's case, repeated and audible sighing at Bush's answers; in Richards's case, suggesting that Bush was a political novice and business failure who really didn't belong on the same stage with her. (2) He turned the debate, whenever possible, to a very few themes consistent with the campaign's issue strategy. (3) He remained calm and moderate, even when his opponent was behaving oddly (e.g., Gore's roaming the debate stage in a manner that suggested the demeanor of a stalker).

This strategy worked superbly in 1994 and 2000 in part because neither Richards nor Gore, nor their political teams, really knew very much about Bush. For a number of reasons--most particularly the feeling among Democrats that Bush had not really won the 2000 election and therefore deserved little respect--Bush continued to be underestimated by congressional Democrats in 2001 and 2002. Because of the mismatch between Democratic attacks and Bush's mild, moderate, "innocent victim" demeanor, observers in the middle instinctively sided with Bush.

By now, Democratic elites are less often fooled. They've been victims of Bush's mousetraps too often for that. And unlike Howard Dean, John Kerry will not walk into easy traps.

Moreover, the president has gotten into a habit of taking conservative positions, but using arguments that appeal far more to moderates than to conservatives to support the positions. When Senate Democrats filibuster Bush's conservative nominees to the federal judiciary, they do so because they favor a continued liberal majority on the Supreme Court concerning such issues as abortion and gay rights. They are quite open about this, and as a result the liberal base is highly mobilized.

Bush repeatedly attacks the Democrats for the filibusters, but seldom if ever mentions the issues actually at stake. Presumably in order to appeal to moderate or undecided voters, he implies that Senate Democrats oppose the advancement of Latinos or women, which voters find difficult to believe. So the filibusters continue, and the conservative base is not only not mobilized, but appears somewhat demoralized.

The other problem is with those voters in the middle to whom Bush and his political team often seem to be gearing their appeal. More and more voters sense there is a cultural divide in the country, and that Bush is on one side and most Democratic elites, including John Kerry, are on the other. This sense of a cultural divide, already evident in the demographics of the 2000 election, has been accentuated by the course of the debate on the war on terrorism, and the invasion of Iraq in particular.

Bush made several distinct arguments for the invasion of Iraq. His unsuccessful attempt to win the backing of the United Nations caused him to give greater emphasis to Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction than would otherwise have been the case. Now that David Kay has concluded the weapons were probably nonexistent by the time of the invasion, it no longer serves much purpose to downplay the moral arguments--the Reaganite arguments--of fighting terrorism not just by destroying weapons, but by replacing terrorist ideas with American democratic values throughout the Middle East and in the larger Islamic world. This includes by necessity the possibility of preemption and regime change. In fact it is these arguments that have the best chance of stimulating and activating the conservative base.

If Howard Dean were heading toward the nomination, Bush might still have had a significant shot at appealing to those voters in the middle. Even voters on the Democratic side of the cultural divide would have considered voting for Bush if they had feared the Democratic candidate was not just liberal, but flaky and unpredictable.

With John Kerry heading for the nomination, that is far less likely. Even Kerry's dullness works to his advantage by making him look thoughtful and competent. A Bush-Kerry matchup can be thought of as shrinking the middle almost to the disappearing point.

In a Bush vs. Kerry race, then, Bush gains nothing from withholding support for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Democrats greatly fear this issue, which is why they feel compelled to state their own belief in heterosexual marriage. On the other hand, Bush doesn't want to say anything that implies intolerance of gays, nor should he. But unless there is a programmatic difference between the two parties--namely, support or non-support for a constitutional amendment prohibiting courts from decreeing gay marriage or its equivalent as a constitutional right--Kerry has a good chance of taking the marriage issue completely off the table, even though he is from Massachusetts and voted against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996.

On the economy, Bush is correct to focus on the future-oriented issue of tax policy. The howls that went up among Democrats when in the State of the Union speech Bush defined the Democratic position as one of future tax increases--including bringing back the hated death tax--show he is in a strong position. Democrats should get used to the idea that they will be described--correctly--as favoring huge tax increases unless they vote to make the 2001-2003 Bush tax cuts permanent.

Saying there are few remaining votes in the middle is not the same thing as saying that we will see a 50-50 election. There is a good chance that Bush's increased use of conservative explanations of conservative positions will do more than stimulate the center-right political base. It might actually win a few votes over to Bush's side of the cultural divide.

Even more likely, it will gain the attention of voters in states like Pennsylvania and Michigan who are already on Bush's side of the cultural war, but had never thought of themselves that way.

The rise of John Kerry, a competent liberal Democrat, means voting alignments will be more purely ideological, not less. In all likelihood, this election will see the culture war become concrete and unavoidable. In that kind of Bush-Kerry debate, the vision of a Bush realignment may well become a reality.

Jeffrey Bell and Frank Cannon are principals of Capital City Partners, a Washington consulting firm.

[WOSG]

Kerrymandering

Kerry Misleads On Intelligence Cuts (from http://www.gopteamleader.com/blog/story.asp?id=1440)

SEN. JOHN KERRY ON HIS VARIOUS PROPOSALS TO CUT INTELLIGENCE FUNDING: "I was on the Intelligence Committee. What we were trying to do, some of us, was push the funding not into technical means. There was a fascination always with satellites, listening devices, not with human intelligence. I've always been somebody who has felt that we needed human intelligence, that's our failure. ... I wanted to reduce spending from The National Technical Means and change the culture of our intelligence gathering." (Fox News "Sunday," 1/25/04)

THE FACTS ON KERRY'S EFFORTS TO CUT INTELLIGENCE FUNDING

• In 1997, Kerry Questioned Size Of Intelligence Community. "Now that [the Cold War] struggle is over, why is it that our vast intelligence apparatus continues to grow ..." (Sen. John Kerry, Congressional Record, 5/1/97, p. S3891)
• In 1995, Kerry Proposed Bill To Gut $1.5 Billion From Overall Intelligence Budget, Not Specific Programs. Kerry introduced a bill that would "reduce the Intelligence budget by $300 million in each of fiscal years 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000." There were no cosponsors of Kerry's 1995 bill, which never made it to the floor for a vote. (S. 1290, Introduced 9/29/95)
• In 1994, Kerry Proposed Bill To Gut $1 Billion From Intelligence And Freeze Intelligence Spending. Kerry proposed a bill cutting $1 billion from the budgets of the National Foreign Intelligence Program and from Tactical Intelligence, and freezing their budgets. (S. 1826, Introduced 2/3/1994)
• In 1994, Kerry Proposed And Voted To Cut $1 Billion From Intelligence. Kerry proposed cutting $1 billion from the budgets of the National Foreign Intelligence Program and from Tactical Intelligence, and freezing their budgets. The amendment was soundly defeated. (S. Amdt. 1452, Introduced 2/9/94; H.R. 3759, CQ Vote #39: Rejected 20-75: R 3-37; D 17-38, 2/10/94, Kerry Voted Yea)

Proposed Cuts Would Have Hurt All Intelligence Programs And Military Readiness:

• U.S. Code: National Foreign Intelligence Program Encompasses All Aspects Of Intelligence Community Programs And Efforts. "The term 'National Foreign Intelligence Program' refers to all programs, projects, and activities of the intelligence community, as well as any other programs of the intelligence community designated jointly by the Director of Central Intelligence and the head of a United States department or agency or by the President." (50 U.S.C. § 401a-6)
• Major Component Of National Foreign Intelligence Program Is FBI's Nationwide Counter Terrorism Programs. "Important responsibilities of the FBI's [Field Offices] are foreign counterintelligence and counter terrorism within the United States, economic espionage, and the ANSIR (Awareness of National Security Issues and Response) Program. Special Agents working these programs strive to detect and thwart the intelligence collection activities of foreign powers and their agents, and take aggressive measures to reduce the vulnerabilities of the United States to terrorism." ("The National Foreign Intelligence Program," FBI Baltimore Division Website, http://baltimore.fbi.gov/nfip.htm, Accessed 1/25/04)
• Tactical Intelligence Provides Vital, Time-Sensitive Support For Commanders And Soldiers On Ground. Tactical Intelligence includes "[t]hose activities outside the National Foreign Intelligence Program that accomplish the following: a. respond to operational commanders' tasking for time-sensitive information on foreign entities; b. respond to national intelligence community tasking of systems whose primary mission is support to operating forces; c. train personnel for intelligence duties; d. provide an intelligence reserve; or e. are devoted to research and development of intelligence or related capabilities. Specifically excluded are programs that are so closely integrated with a weapon system that their primary function is to provide immediate-use targeting data." ("Tactical Intelligence And Related Activities," Department Of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/, 6/5/03)
• In 1993, Kerry Proposed $45 Billion In Science, Intelligence And Defense Spending Cuts. (John Aloysius Farrell, "Buchanan Vindicated, But Pulitzer Unlikely," The Boston Globe, 11/20/93

  http://www.gopteamleader.com/blog/story.asp?id=1440

[WOSG]

posted previous as juston example of how GOP will show Kerry's extreme views on national security.

[WOSG]

http://www.ntu.org/main/press.php?PressID=548&org_name=NTUF


Campaign pundits continue to wonder whether Howard Dean's candidacy for President will get the final boost it needs to prevail in this month's key Democratic primaries with former officeseeker Al Gore's recent endorsement.

Yet, Gore's indirect presence in the race also reminds taxpayers of his duels with George W. Bush over fiscal policy in the 2000 Presidential contest. While Gore labeled Bush's tax reduction and Social Security reform plans as "risky schemes," Bush accused his opponent's budget platform of suffering from "fuzzy math." Today, as eight Democrats vie for their party's top nomination, many deficit-conscious Americans may be wondering if such terms are applicable to the 2004 race.

Each of the Democrat contenders for the White House disparaged recent projections of huge budget shortfalls (nearing $500 billion for Fiscal Year 2004) for their own rhetorical purposes. For example, front-runner Howard Dean states he will commit to "set the nation on the path to a balanced budget."[1] For his part, Dick Gephardt recalled that "two short years ago, we were having arguments about what to do with the surplus" and announced that "the President's economic policy has failed."[2]

Joseph Lieberman has accused White House officials of "hiding behind the war and homeland security to excuse their own fiscal irresponsibility,"[3] while John Kerry claims "this Administration has turned fiscal responsibility on its ear."[4] Wesley Clark has declared he "would restore the basic principle of responsibility to the budget process: all tax and spending proposals must be paid for without increasing the deficit."[5]

Despite their different approaches, to a person, the eight Democrat Presidential candidates call for spending increases that would substantially swell the deficit. On average, the candidates' proposals would pile an additional $479 billion onto the federal deficit beyond planned spending (a 21.5 percent increase in the budget).[6]

This Policy Paper systematically examines the fiscal implications of the eight contenders' agendas, using neutral techniques to assign a running cost tally to each budget proposal publicly offered by the candidates.

Highlights include:
* Out of over 200 cost-associated proposals offered by the candidates, just two would reduce federal spending.
* All candidates offer platforms that call for more spending than would be offset by repealing the Bush tax cut.[7]
* Five of the eight candidates' health care spending proposals would cost over $100 billion in the first year alone.


John Kerry leads the pack of Democratic Presidential candidates in the military/veterans policy category. The Senator's pledge to support veterans' health programs carries a cost of over $41 billion. The bulk of Kerry's spending, however, comes in the form of a $55.9 billion education agenda, an $89.88 billion health care platform, and $31.04 billion in infrastructure improvements.

Included in Kerry's education plan -- the second priciest of the Democratic proposals -- is a $2.25 billion offer of more affordable child care, an expanded Head Start program, and $25 billion in school renovations. The Kerry health care plan allows Americans to buy into the same arrangement offered to Members of Congress -- at a taxpayer cost of $89.5 billion per year. Senator Kerry's infrastructure program entails $31 billion in restored highway funding and $35 million in funding for a high-speed rail programs.

[WOSG]

You do know the Concord Coalition is a 'stalking horse' for liberals against tax cuts - they are for higher taxes. So why would they criticize Bush in this setup piece that tries to divide conservatives? So he will get defeated by somone who will increase taxes? (and also spend more, but the CC only cares about deficits, not about whether the country becomes socialistic).

TRUST THE NATIONAL TAXPAYERS UNION INSTEAD:

State of Union Speech's Price Tag Lowest in Five Years, Line-by-Line Analysis Finds
"n Tuesday's speech to Congress George W. Bush proposed $13.6 billion in annual spending increases, the lowest rise among the last five Presidential State of the Union addresses, according to a detailed analysis by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF)."
http://www.ntu.org/main/press_release.php?PressID=551&org_name=NTUF


Kerry's rating .... F in almost every year he's been in the Senate.

http://www.ntu.org/main/components/ratescongress/details_all_years.php3?senate_id=54

[finnman69]

like I said..spending or not

Bush is not a socialist.....

'conservatives' who call Bush a socilist are as retarded and simple minded as the socialists who call Bush a Nazi.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

A casual review of the public record will reveal that GW has supported every socialist spending measure that has ever crossed his desk.

BTW, Calling someone who disagrees with you "retarded leaves one to suspect your personal intellectual "horsepower".

[finnman69]

I didn't call you retarded because I disagree with you. I called you retarded because you kind the asinine assertion that LW fruitloops like Michael Moore make.


Fine, call Bush a socialist, but it places you in the same mental lightweight categories as the Moveon.com jerkoffs who call Bush a nazi. I can't help it if you make a stupid assertion.

[NYTexan]

Nice Ammo!

Expect to hear it again in Oct-Nov.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

BTW, I am a libertarian constitutional conservative. I have supported GW because he is by far the least damaging (to the Republic) of the alternatives.

I am an operations manager for a California-based high-tech equipment manufacturer. I have earned degrees in engineering, business, and economics. I have earned an MBA and I have taught business, economics, and communications courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. I will leave it to your as-yet unsubstantiated intellect to discern whether or not I am "retarded". LOL!

[finnman69]

, I am a libertarian constitutional conservative.

LOL, figures....here is a typical Libertarian.

[Cagey]

I am an operations manager for a California-based high-tech equipment manufacturer. I have earned degrees in engineering, business, and economics. I have earned an MBA and I have taught business, economics, and communications courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. I will leave it to your as-yet unsubstantiated intellect to discern whether or not I am "retarded". LOL!

With the credentials you list, you are certainly not retarded but you could easily be insane.

I'll go further than finnman and say that your calling Kerry a Communist is crazy. Kerry is a far left whacked out Democrat, but for God's sake stop tossing the "C" word around. It makes you look like a wing-nut or something similar.

[SunkenCiv]

"I'm a doctor, dammit, not a president." -- Howard Dean

[SunkenCiv]

Clinton and Clinton:
To maintain their hold on the party,
Howard Dean had to be destroyed
by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
Sunday, February 1, 2004
posted on Free Republic

Today the party of Roosevelt and Truman is the party of Clinton & Clinton. Bill Clinton remains a mesmerizing figure to those he does not repel. Hillary's appeal is in some ways broader than his. As a U.S. senator she has gained stature and positioned herself as a "Scoopette" Jackson, but one for the progressive bien-pensants. She can represent the transcendent dreams of the feminists, the gay-rights activists, the environmental rigorists. Behind the scenes, Clinton servitors run the Democratic Party, beginning at the Democratic National Committee with Chairman Terrence McAuliffe. Though the McCain-Feingold "campaign reform" law has left Democratic campaign committees with depleted coffers, the Clintons' neo-Georgian mansion in Northwest Washington has become a money magnet, with generous lobbyists rolling up in their black Lincolns nightly to make New York's junior senator a richly endowed political donor. Hillary also presides over a New Age political machine, starting with a host of fundraising honeypots with cute names such as HILLPAC and Hill's Angels. Longtime Clinton loyalists are directing tens of millions of dollars to organizations under their control, including a liberal radio talk-show network and a moneyed think tank just off K Street, the Center for American Progress. Clinton lieutenant Harold Ickes is directing funds to what is expected to become a $250 million behemoth political organization called America Votes, which will rely on shared polling data, research and mailing lists, including "Demzilla"--the data bank on voters maintained by the DNC. "It doesn't take much to figure out what the issues are and the messages you need to be helpful," the clever Mr. Ickes told one reporter.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

I was engaging in hyperbole. Having a little fun. OK? Lighten up already. Jeeez.

BTW, since at least the 1960's BOTH parties have been drifiting steadily and inexorably TO THE LEFT, wouldn't you agree?

If JFK were campaigning for the 2004 Democrat Party nomination on the basis of his 1960 platform (lower taxes to stimulate the economy, etc.) he would probably not be nominated over today's (tax and spend) JFK. And what 1960's era democrat would not have salivated over the laundry list of big-governbment social spending that the Republican Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have given us. My comment regarding GW and JFK was with regard to THIS issue, folks.

FYI: Actually, it should be libertarian with a small "L". Hopefully you understand the difference. See Ya around.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

BTW, stopming up and down and calling somebody "retarded" makes you come off like a fifth-grade school girl.

[Cagey]

....BOTH parties have been drifiting steadily and inexorably TO THE LEFT, wouldn't you agree?

Yes, I sure would.

[finnman69]

BTW, stopming up and down and calling somebody "retarded" makes you come off like a fifth-grade school girl.

I'm not the one who made the wild exaggerated comment about Bush. And yes I know fifth graders who know what a socialist is, maybe I can put you in touch with them.

[finnman69]

Kerry is a far left whacked out Democrat, but for God's sake stop tossing the "C" word around. It makes you look like a wing-nut or something similar.

Communist, socialist, nazi......all terms used frequently inappropriately by wing nuts.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

I was using hyperbole to make a point. Do I have to check with you in the future to make sure I have your permission?

BTW, I supported GW and the GOP in 2000 financially and with GOTV work. I donate thousands to the Federal and State Republican parties as well as individual candidates in my home district and across the country. I will do so again this next election cycle and for as long as I am able to support conservatism in this country.

I like GW and believe we were extremely fortunate that Gore and the Clinton Democrat machine were unable to steal the election in 2000. As much as I like GW he has been a tough pill to swallow with his practically insatiable spending binge, with his refusal to secure our borders and arm our pilots, etc. I could post a lot of source material but I will not do so.

Nonetheless, GW has done a magnificent job in facing our enemies abroad and on foriegn policy in general. His instincts, and his command of our military and national security apparatus in rolling up al-Queda, defeating the Taliban and Saddam -- leading to Libya's recent conversion and who knows what other near term benefits has been remarkable and will lead to a safer world.

I'm going to stand down now. See you around.

[lasereye]

I think this article hit the bullseye. Bush can't keep trying to orient his campaign around appealing to moderates, which seems to be Rove's strategy. He has to clarify differences between himself and Kerry on the social issues, especially abortion, and not back down. If he doesn't have the guts to do that, he deserves to lose. And if Rove doesn't like it, can him.