Bush knocks the wind out of Kerry's sails
by JohnHuang2
"This election is Kerry's to lose," wrote pollster John Zogby not long ago. "John Kerry will win the election." He noted that "Kerry's performance of late has hardly been inspiring and polls show that most Americans have no sense of where Kerry stands on issues." (Among those who have no sense of where Kerry stands on issues is Kerry.) "Regardless," said Zogby, "I still think that he will win."
He will win armed with what, spitballs? The pollster, rather shockingly, cited . . . polls. Zogby, reporting for duty, cited polls like Zogby's, for example. "My most recent poll (April 12-15) shows bad" numbers for Bush. (No way can Bush survive the Kerry steamroller.) "Senator Kerry is leading 47% to 44% in a two-way race, and the candidates are tied at 45% in the three-way race with Ralph Nader." Another reason Zogby thinks Kerry will win, says Zogby, is that "there are very few undecided voters for this early in a campaign. Historically, the majority of undecideds break to the challenger against an incumbent." Finally, this is Kerry's election to lose, Zogby wrote back in May, because Kerry's a "good closer. Something happens to him in the closing weeks of campaigns." He pointed to Kerry's Iowa primary victory over that whacked out mental case, Howard Dean. And to Kerry's '96 Senate re-election victory in Massachusetts (and everybody knows America is just like same-sex marriage, anti-gun, anti-death penalty, anti-war Massachusetts). In other words, running as an incumbent senator in a state with 5 or 6 registered Republicans is analogous to running as a challenger nation-wide against an incumbent President in wartime. In any event, Zogby noted "the numbers today (back in April and May) are on (Kerry's) side."
But Zogby wasn't alone in his assessment, pre-GOP convention, that this is Kerry's election to lose. Larry Sabato, who directs the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, also said that "if the election was held now," *now* being 4 weeks ago, in early August, Kerry "would win very handily." He noted that Bush "'will need a miracle to win." (Kerry would need a miracle to have elections in early August.) Speaking to the Business Council of Alabama three weeks before the GOP convention, Sabato said that America is on the verge of electing Kerry, given all the polls showing Landslide Kerry way, waaaaay ahead by 2 or 3 tenths of one percent.
Bush is vulnerable and the odds are overwhelmingly against him, noted Bloomberg News during the GOP convention. Bush would have to "overcome 48 years of history to win re-election over" Kerry, an incredibly appealing candidate to Bloomberg News. "Since 1956, none of the three presidents who trailed in a Gallup Poll after February of a re-election year won a second term." (No doubt, on Election Day, the typical voter scrambles to see who was ahead in a Gallup Poll in February to decide who to vote for. Go ahead, ask president Gary Hart if you don't believe me.)
With the election in the bag, Kerry, with his shy, tight-lipped wife, went windsurfing. Then came the GOP convention and the ground shifted. Out went the wind from Kerry's sails. Democrats, complaining the convention was filled with rancor from extremists and noting that it won't play well with voters, complained the convention was filled with 'Kinder and Gentler' happy talk from party moderates, eschewing rancor just to fool voters. Despite seasoned predictions by Zogby that "polarized" voters aren't about to give either candidate big bounces, especially not Sure Loser Bush, polarized voters ignored Zogby and promptly unpolarized and gave Sure Loser Bush a Big Bounce. (Next, Zogby will say Bush needs a major staff shake-up.) The media saw massive damage for Bush after Zell Miller's speech, and, sure enough, Bush was massively damaged into double-digit leads in TIME and NEWSWEEK polls. Building on the modest Bounce he got from the Democrat convention in Boston, Bush now leads Kerry, 52%-45%, according CNN/USA Today/Gallup; 54%-43%, according to NEWSWEEK; 52%-41%, according to TIME.
So what went wrong? Are the difficulties Kerry's having because he won this election too quickly? Too soon? Since this was Kerry's election to lose, per Zogby, is that why Kerry's losing it? Some Democrats say the problem was money -- Kerry didn't have enough money in August. (Kerry -- the guy who promises to solve all your money problems.) Look, I'll tell you what went wrong. It all comes down to one letter -- F. John F. Kerry. What do you think 'F' stands for? Flipper. Flipping direction, flipping choices, flipping priorities, flipping judgment for our country. Small wonder Flipper framed his entire convention around Vietnam, before he didn't. The convention focused on how much Democrats adored the Vietnam War, which Democrats call immoral and illegal and that's why they're proud Kerry served in it. But it was the wrong choice, wrong priority, wrong direction for a convention.
Changing strategists and image makers as often as he changes Depends, Kerry's new advisers are advising Kerry to start focusing on domestic issues and to ignore terrorism (you know, like all true Democrats). In other words, focus on issues that people who already plan to vote for you care about, instead of broadening your voter base by addressing terrorism. So, while terrorists butcher children in classrooms, Dems think Kerry should start talking about . . . health care. (I'm clueless on terrorism, but vote for me -- I've got this real neat health insurance plan for you!) In phone conversations from his New York hospital room over the weekend, Clinton told Kerry to stay away from Vietnam. (If there's one thing Clinton was very good at, it was staying away from Vietnam.) With the housing market sizzling and the jobless rate falling like Kerry's poll numbers, now is the time to focus on Bush's failed economic policies which led to these disasters. (Boy, you can already feel Kerry's new message of economic despair catch fire with unemployment at 5.4%!)
The Kerry campaign heatedly denies there's been a shake-up, noting that shake-ups are routine at this phase of the campaign. "'There's no shake-up,'" spokesman David Wade told the Washington Times. As part of this No Shake-Up, "we've been lucky to add some tested, talented people to the campaign." Tested, talented people like John Sasso, whose '88 campaign was deemed a brilliant success, although his client Dukakis lost. He lost to a guy named George Bush, so hiring Sasso should prove a solid morale boost for Democrats. (Yeah, nothing like Dukakis's best and brightest!) Democrats say a key problem for Kerry, and the reason he's trailing so badly, is the 'likability' factor. So Kerry thinks that by putting James Carville and Joe Lockhart on the team, voters will like him more. That the reason he was losing support is because voters yearned to see Joe Lockhart on the payroll.
Word is that, from here on, no more staff shake-ups. This new team stays with Kerry all the way to Election Day (that's when their contracts with Karl Rove expire). Now all Kerry needs is a surgeon -- for that personality implant.
With his campaign refocused like a laser on domestic issues, Kerry on Monday launched a blistering attack on Bush's . . . Iraq policy. The blistering attack left Kerry blistering all over because, two weeks ago, Kerry considered Iraq the right war in the right place at the right time. Now he changed his mind again, angrily denouncing Iraq as "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." (Kerry's positions on Iraq are like hurricane forecasts -- you need live updates every hour.)
Kerry, who says Bush misled him into voting for war (which is why he'd vote for war again today), faces mounting pressure from Swift Vets who say Kerry misled America into thinking he's a war hero.
Kerry, who says he's now the anti-war candidate, noted that "It all comes down to one letter -- W. George W. Bush. And W. stands for wrong. The W stands for wrong direction, wrong choices, wrong priorities, wrong judgment for our country!" Asked for specifics on Iraq, Kerry says his plan is secret.
Bush, campaigning Tuesday in the suburbs of Kansas City, defended defending America, noting that Kerry "woke up yesterday morning with yet another new position, and this one's not even his own; it is that of his one-time rival, Howard Dean. He used the same words Howard Dean did back when he supposedly disagreed with him." No matter how many times Senator Kerry flip-flops, "We were right to make America safer by removing Saddam Hussein from power."
Kerry says he supported the war which toppled Saddam but disagrees with Going-It-Alone with 32 countries, which is why he voted for it, noting that Bush's father's Coalition of 34 countries was better, which is why he voted against it. (We know clogged arteries were blocking the blood supply to Clinton's heart. We don't know what's blocking the blood supply to Kerry's brain.)
How do you separate domestic issues and terrorism? Answer: You don't because you can't. Not after 9/11. And only a fool would try. Which is why Kerry's trying. The bottom line is, with less than two months to go, Lurch has offered no compelling reason to think he even takes the terror 'thingy' seriously. Unable to answer the threshold question, nothing Flipper says resonates, nothing sticks, thus the constantly shifting positions, sinking his candidacy even deeper in quagmire. Having ceded the terror issue, Kerry's reduced to pitching health insurance. Then again, with no plan for fighting terrorism, you'd need health insurance with girlie-men at the helm. Which, my friends, is why Lurch will never be president.
Anyway, that's...
My two cents.. "JohnHuang2"
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