Posted on 06/08/2004 9:58:02 AM PDT by veronica
After enduring a number of setbacks during a difficult spring, President Bush appears to be in the midst of a rebound. The economic news is good, the news from Iraq shows some improvement, and the President's schedule has provided him several opportunities to focus public attention on his campaign theme of "providing strong leadership for America".
As a result, the President's poll numbers have risen slightly and one prominent pundit, who has developed a scientific model that has correctly predicted the outcome of every election since 1984, now says that Bush appears to be a likely winner in November.
Just one month ago, Bush was in the midst of a string of setbacks. A series of books had been published revealing embarrassing information about his presidency. The 9/11 commission provided a number of damaging challenges to the Administration. And the Abu Ghraib scandal, coupled with an insurgent driven unraveling of the military situation in Iraq-all combined to deliver serious blows to Bush's leadership image.
But the news has improved. The U.S. economy continues to grow. The Administration was boosted by news last week that the U.S. added almost one million news jobs in the past four months.
News from Iraq has also been somewhat more comforting. More flexible American tactics have provided at least short term solutions to the Fallujah insurrection and the possibility of a settlement to the Sadr rebellion.
Although the plan for the selection of Iraq's interim government didn't unfold as anticipated, the U.S.'s new flexibility put the Administration in the position of being able to embrace the outcome and call it a victory. Evidence of this was on display last week as a confident President Bush appeared in the White House Rose Garden delivering an upbeat message of Iraq now on a track for democracy. That address, coupled with Bush's appearance at the official commemoration of Washington's new World War II memorial, other Memorial Day activities, and his stirring commencement address to an obviously supportive Air Force Academy graduating class, provided the President with a number of very positive media opportunities that he used with great effectiveness.
Now in the midst of a European tour, with visits to the Vatican, Rome, Paris, and culminating at a Normandy 60th D-Day anniversary commemoration, the White House is assured of several more days of positive news stories dominating the U.S. media.
All of this has had an obvious effect on the presidential race. Bush's events have drowned out challenger John Kerry's weeklong efforts to challenge the Bush Administration's national security policy. A series of Kerry press events and policy speeches focusing on a range of initiatives have all been reduced to secondary stories in the face of the White House's blitz. With this has come an uptick in public opinion polls. A few weeks ago, Bush was trailing behind Kerry in most major polls. He now holds a slight lead in many. The country is too politically divided for any major swing to occur, but the change in the White House's fortunes has nevertheless produced measurable results.
Late last week I hosted American University professor Allan Lichtman on my Abu Dhabi TV "Viewpoint" program. Lichtman is the analyst who has developed a scientific model for predicting the outcome of presidential elections. While Lichtman has been using his model to correctly call the results of every race since 1984, he has based his approach on an analysis of the past 35 presidential contests going back to 1860. Instead of utilizing polling data, Lichtman analyzes macro trends in the economy and the society. He has identified 13 such indicators and calls them his "13 Keys". According to Lichtman for the incumbent to win reelection, he needs to hold at least eight of these "13 Keys". The "13 Keys" are:
The Incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives after the midterm election;
There is no real contest for the incumbent nomination;
The incumbent-party is the current president;
There is no real third-party;
The economy is not in recession;
Per capita economic growth is improving;
The Administration effected major policy changes;
There is no major social unrest;
The incumbent is untainted by major scandal; There have been no major military or foreign policy failures;
There was a major military or foreign policy success;
The incumbent is charismatic or a national hero; and
The challenger is not charismatic and not a national hero.
According to Lichtman's assessment, Bush currently can claim the eight keys necessary to win. (Bush has "Keys" 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11 and 13.) The four "Keys" Bush loses are 6, 7, 10 and 12. "Key" nine is still unclear.
Since most of the "Keys" are macro, or long-term indicators, Lichtman sees little change possible with most of them. The two, however, that could change are numbers 9 and 11. If, for example, any of the currently outstanding investigations (9/11, Abu Ghraib, pre-Iraq war intelligence and the leak of a CIA agent's identity) expand and lead directly to the White House, then Bush will lose "Key" 9. And if Iraq takes a turn for the worse and Afghanistan, the one domestically perceived foreign policy success, unravels dramatically enough to change public perception, than Bush would lose "Key" 11 and could, therefore, according to Lichtman, be in trouble.
The situation is still somewhat fluid. But, as it stands today, if Bush's good fortune holds, his edge in the polls may remain and he could continue to hold enough "Keys" to be reelected in November.
Dr. James J. Zogby, President of the Arab American Institute
Abu Zogby would work.
different Zogby...the Pollsters brother. This guy runs some Arab PR group.
What does the third one mean?..I've read it several times..it's not making sense..
Kerry's Election to loseBut it was pollster John Zogby who gave the most intriguing briefing. Zogby has to be taken seriously because he got it right when almost all the pollsters had it wrong in 2000. He also caught the slight tilt toward the Republicans on the eve of the 2002 elections.
What he told the group upset most of them -- but his message came through loud and clear. While most pollsters view this election as Bush's to lose, he believes this election is Kerry's to lose.
He said that usually at this time of year, 20-25% of the electorate is undecided, but this year there only 5% of the electorate is undecided. Finding such people when polling is becoming exceedingly difficult, he told us. Moreover, the soft vote, that is the people who MIGHT be persuaded to vote for the other guy, is only 10% -- a historic low.
But we will be able to claim Zogby was left no matter what the outcome is.
The guy running for President belongs to the same Party ar the guy who was just President. In this case, theyre the same guy.. Get it?
BOY! The Rats are suffering from the FLIP FLOP Plague!! Didn't Zogmbie call it for sKERRY not long ago?? RATS=Flippers!!
PLAGUE: 1 a : a disastrous evil or affliction : CALAMITY b : a destructively numerous influx2 a : an epidemic
disease causing a high rate of mortality :
Its higher than that. Most polls show 10-15 % aamong likely voters. I suspect theres a bit more float than he thinks..
OK...it's a more "general" list....thanks...
Yes. John and James Zogby are brothers and neither one should be trusted.
BUMP!
Zogby is actually willing to write for Al-Jazeerah? That's the surest sign of a scumbag I can think of.
Pray for W and Our Magnificent Troops
I can't trust Zogby anymore. In 2000 election, he had al bore winning in staggering numbers.
That's what I thought... then I read at the end that the person writing this was the Arab institute Zogby, not the pollster... nuch to my surprise. It was his brother, the pollster who had said that.
1. Tell the American public that Bush will loose - demoralize Republicans and depress their voter turnout.
2. Tell the Arabs that Bush is likely to win; increasing the pressure to commit more violence in Iraq and throughout the region to make it look like America has totally lost control of the situation.
Remember, Zogby is an Arab
I wonder if the House of Saud owns Zogby like it does the rest of liberal US media.
According to Rasmussen, only 28% think we are still in recession. The market has rallied. Gas is inching downward.
James and John are brothers, John is the pollster.
I saw a "non-political", "technical" interview of John on C-Span a year or so ago and I was startled to hear John make and amazing admission...polling is getting to be so unreliable as to almost be useless.
Reasons he cited were, Caller ID (people don't answer the calls), new phone systems (such as cable phone where you can have any area code you choose), Cell phones as the only phone (once again different area codes and no answers due to the "minutes" issue) and people just refusing to participate (folks used to be thrilled to do it), amoung others.
Bottom line is the pollsters can't be sure that they have a statistically valid sample.
My personal addition is in a Presidential election a national poll is meaningless...President Reagan won 50.3% of the vote but won 45 states in his first election (that's 90% of the states). I forget what the electoral vote was but it seems that President Reagan got about 80% of those. I'm not a bit worried, I wouldn't be surprised if Kerry won as few as 3 states; CA, MA and NY...W lost those three in 2000 and Kerry might carry the popular vote.
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