Posted on 08/28/2004 5:28:36 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The US presidential election could not be tighter as the Republican Party convention gets under way this week.
Bush will face off for the presidency in November against Senator John Kerry, he of the lantern jaw, the growling voice and the preposterous hair. The candidates look ever more alike in their policies, and the election looks ever closer.
Going in to the Republican convention the polls seem to have Bush just ahead. Assuming he gets a bounce from the convention itself, even of a few points, he's probably narrowly in the lead.
But a lot of factors favour the challenger, John Kerry. The most important by far is that among undecided voters, some three quarters are leaning to Kerry.
Traditionally it's difficult for an incumbent, who is already well known, to get many undecideds to turn his way in the last stages of an election.
But there are just so many variables it's impossible to predict intelligently what will happen.
Will some new development in Iraq be overwhelming? Will interest rates rise? Will the presidential debates be decisive? Will some scandal emerge which affects one of the presidential tickets?
This will likely be a very close and tight election. Both sides have huge base votes of about 43 to 45 per cent. As one senior US political consultant told me a couple of weeks ago, there will be $US500 million spent on six per cent of the vote in 17 states in the last 90 days of the campaign. There are factors that favour both Bush and Kerry. One factor that favors Bush is that his base vote tends to come out in higher proportions than the Democratic Party base vote.
Similarly, population growth in the states that Bush won in 2000 mean that if he just wins again the states he won then, he will have a comfortable margin in the electoral college.
Last time Bush won just under half the vote and Al Gore just over half, but because electoral college numbers are based on the numbers of congressmen each state sends to Washington, Bush won an electoral college majority even though he didn't get a majority of the votes.
It's similar to John Howard winning a majority of parliamentary seats in the 1998 election, even though Kim Beazley won a majority of the two party preferred vote.
This election is in fact a series of separate, mini elections. For example, the Hispanic vote is critical. Bush will win the white male vote overwhelmingly. Kerry will win the black vote overwhelmingly.
But Bush speaks Spanish, has a Mexican sister-in-law and in Texas, where he was governor, did very well among Hispanics, now the US's largest minority.
The Republicans normally win between a quarter and a third of Hispanic votes.
Professionals think if Bush gets the figure anywhere beyond 35 per cent, he'll win.
Similarly, it's hard for Kerry to win against Bush in the south. And the southern states provide such a large bloc of votes that Kerry has to win overwhelmingly in the rest of the country to win the presidency.
The Green Party candidacy of Ralph Nader - if he scores more than three per cent of the vote - could give a swag of states to Bush.
On the other hand Kerry is clearly benefiting from the disillusion that a lot of white working class voters, who are conservative socially and patriotic about military matters, are now starting to feel over the commitment to Iraq.
Kerry has moved strongly to the centre on national security, promising to stay in Iraq until the job is done and to recruit 40,000 new soldiers for the army.
But a staggering development over the last 10 days, one Kerry could never have predicted, is the way his war record in Vietnam has blown up in his face.
Kerry is an aloof, upper class, wooden character.
For the last 20 years his main method of forging an emotional connection to working class voters has been to focus on his record in Vietnam, where he won several medals, whereas Bush served at home in the Texas National Guard. But having made Vietnam the centre of his emotional pitch, Kerry also made it fair game for scrutiny and political debate. And it certainly looks as though while he served honourably, he exaggerated his record.
Kerry has been talking about his four months of service in Vietnam constantly for 20 years. The problem is he has talked about it so much he seems to have massaged the facts a bit.
And now other veterans are coming forward to challenge many aspects of Kerry's many different stories about Vietnam.
As a result Kerry's appeal to veterans - a key component of the conservative working class vote he needs to woo especially in the mid-west - has declined sharply. But amazing as all this is, you can be sure there are plenty more astounding twists and turns to come. This is going to be a great contest to watch.
* Greg Sheridan is foreign editor of The Australian.
For the last 20 years his main method of forging an emotional connection to working class voters has been to focus on his record in Vietnam, where he won several medals, whereas Bush served at home in the Texas National Guard. But having made Vietnam the centre of his emotional pitch, Kerry also made it fair game for scrutiny and political debate. And it certainly looks as though while he served honourably, he exaggerated his record.
Kerry has been talking about his four months of service in Vietnam constantly for 20 years. The problem is he has talked about it so much he seems to have massaged the facts a bit.
And now other veterans are coming forward to challenge many aspects of Kerry's many different stories about Vietnam.
As a result Kerry's appeal to veterans - a key component of the conservative working class vote he needs to woo especially in the mid-west - has declined sharply. But amazing as all this is, you can be sure there are plenty more astounding twists and turns to come. This is going to be a great contest to watch...... ***
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Bump!
This one is Treason!
You just do not realize how sick jfk is until you read this
VVAW worked with the NV to get US not to bomb NV troops during an attck by NV.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1201299/posts
And this one go to 54
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1201386/posts
If you would like to help the Swift Boat Vets ( as I have, and I urge all to do-- even a few dollars will help ) kindly click on this logo:
If, perchance, the top "click the pic" link is not visible, click here:
-John Kerry- some selected, informative links...--
Judge for yourself- see the SwiftVet ads here:
Great work backhoe!
EVERYONE.....Bookmark backhoe's thread for reference.
Post # 3.
Thank you kindly, but don't forget:
I still think it's Boosh's fault.don't drink the kool-aid
(still think it's boosh's fault
don't drink the kool-aid
If I were black and saw this statistic, I'd be asking myself why freedom hasn't helped my race's intelligence level any. Same goes for the "more women vote for Kerry" satistic.
Blacks are the dumbest USA voters. The Democrat Party has kept these fools in economic slavery for fifty years, and these idiots are too dumb to realize it! However, the really dumb voters are USA Jews, who will vote enmasse for John Kerry, who when elected will promptly take the steps that will lead to their elimination from this earth! That goes for gays, lesbians, women, etc. Better wise up folks! The muslim murderers are going to have a field day if John Kerry is elected. And....they will be laughing through all of the beheadings of the above, knowing these idiots voted for their own deaths!
How's that for understatement???
"Kerry has been talking about his four months of service in Vietnam constantly for 20 years."
Well, certainly no understatement there.
"The problem is he has talked about it so much he seems to have massaged the facts a bit."
Seems like it, doesn't it? --to respond to understatement with understatement.
"And now other veterans are coming forward to challenge many aspects of Kerry's many different stories about Vietnam."
Yes, to the morally flexible, truth has many different versions, and one might as well select the one that serves one's purposes best.
And, of course, it goes without saying that the Democrat Party and its spokespersons are very flexible morally.
How's that for understatement???
Absolutely truth! [Some can not handle it...but truth nonetheless.]
"Blacks are the dumbest USA voters."
Maybe so, I could write a column on the subject but the real shame is that anyone old enough to vote is uninformed or stupid enough to consider voting for this &*&())^$#)! Nobody could possibly examine his record and come up with an excuse to vote for him. If people are such Bush haters that they cannot possibly vote for the President they should just stay home, there is no conceivable way to justify voting for Kerry.
not gonna be close, no sir..
"If I were black and saw this statistic, I'd be asking myself why freedom hasn't helped my race's intelligence level any. Same goes for the "more women vote for Kerry" satistic."
I had a brief conversation with a young black man yesterday, he seemed well informed on world events and he said that he thinks we need a new President who could take a fresh look at the war situation and he thought Kerry could do that. I simply told him that Kerry has a history of doing very little and that his attendance record in the Senate was very poor. He told me he didn't know that, it seemed to be news to him. We need to hammer away on the fact that Kerry has not bothered to do anything while in the Senate.
No. Both Bush and Gore got less than 49%.
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