ping
Professor Hewitt bump.
Reagan, as hard as it is to say goodbye, his timing will help Bush. People forget. Reagan has reminded them of what a strong country really is. Kerry now looks all the more ridiculous. Bush is the man for the job TODAY!
"Bush has totally attached himself to Ronald Reagan. He's going to turn Reagan into his own verifier."
Yep...
Tax cuts, freedom for the oppressed and smaller government. Two out of three is a start. Maybe in the second term Bush will go after big government.
Good news for the Clintoons. Time to start gearing up for 2008 Hillary.
This political dissecting of the political impact of the death of Ronald Reagan morbid & distasteful. I don't care who does it.
Dem strategist Steve McMahon: "The focus on Ronald Reagan will inevitably lead to comparisons that frankly don't leave President Bush in such a good light."
And people pay him to say things like this? Man, I'm in the wrong line of work.
Both Ronald Reagan and George Bush come across as regular Guys. And that's a powerful asset for a politician.
Federal Reviewmy prediction -- George Bush will be reelected by a ten per cent margin.
Dales' Electoral College Breakdown 2004
Its not the coverage of Ronald Reagans funeral that will help Bush come November. Its not the tributes, the observations that Reagan was in fact right on the topics of Communism, economics, welfare, etc etc etc.
Its the Democrats over the top rhetoric, which began yesterday, and is picking up steam as I post this.
Watch closely. The Democrats will remind everybody of only one thing by the end of this week.
Why they are the clear minority political party, with shrinking membership, coffers that don't fill up as they once did, and thousands of lost elective offices from across the spectrum from local, to state, to the federal level.
The Pelosi's of the world are so completely "tone deaf" politically they just can't help but make Bush look good, while they trash Reagan, and Bush by proxy.
With this I largely agree. All of this prognostication about what is going to influence an election still nearly half a year away is nothing more than speculation.
By the time November rolls around there will be two lines of comparison still valid, and one of these is under the direct control of the Democrats. One isn't - that's the fact that the results in Iraq at that point will inevitably be compared, for better or worse, with those Reagan helped produce in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Wall. A relatively stable and relatively free Iraq will be even worse news to the Dems then than it is now (which is sort of a sad trap in which to find one's politics, but then we warned them).
The one that is under their control is the inevitable comparison between the level of hate propaganda - there is no other name for it that comes close - directed toward the two men. It stems from a common source, after all. And it is only under the Dems' control if they and their media allies can resist their heretofore unresisted tendency toward negative hyperbole. I see no particular sign that they can do so.
Reagan's death in June will have zero affect on the election in November. And I find the desire and effort to have his death affect the election troubling.
Let'em spin right off the table.
BTTT
It will motivate the conservative base, but not do anything for the moderates.
The impact will not last through November.
Like it or not, the analysts are right saying it won't have a big impact.
The reason the Democrats have come out in spin-mode isn't to divert attention from the Reagan remembrances, or to convince voters, but to convince themselves....The only way a Democrat political professional can get out of bed in the morning and go on with his or her life is to walk in a cloud of self-delusion. The praise and affection that have been heaped on Ronald Reagan this week have been reality slapping them in the face, and they know it. By mid-week, they reverted to lying to themselves, as a way to convince themselves that "all this doesn't matter."
Of course Reagan will help Bush. He alredy has by giving W the courage to pursue his conservative convictions. At the end of the day, Kerry is a looser.