Posted on 09/26/2004 7:18:28 AM PDT by Libloather
Security obsession pushes swing states into Bush's grasp
Voters in Missouri are desperate to protect the homeland, and are turning to the Republicans for reassurance
Paul Harris in Clay County, Missouri
Sunday September 26, 2004
The Observer
The air was hot and the mosquitoes were biting as Tom Brown sweatily trudged from house to house on the leafy suburban street. An elderly woman opened her door and eagerly took a leaflet from the Republican campaigner. Her next words brought a grin to Brown's face. 'I was going to vote for you anyway,' she said, before adding: 'And I'm a Democrat, too.'
Brown is campaigning on the streets of Clay County, Missouri, one of the most crucial battlegrounds in the US elections. The message was loud and clear: President George Bush is winning in the swing states.
That is a key development as the election enters its final stretch. Most of America is starkly divided into red and blue, but the swing states are the only place where the political palate is mixed. They are the places where the battle for the White House will be won or lost. They mainly stretch in an arc from the rust belt of Pennsylvania through Ohio and down into the Midwest. This is purple America, and nowhere is more purple than Clay County.
In the 2000 election Al Gore won Clay County by a single vote, making it the narrowest victory in the United States. But things do not look so close this time around. Clay County's Republicans are openly confident of victory. In fact, Brown knows things cannot stay this good. 'It is going so good right now it's scary. That will change. There is no way Bush can maintain this level of support,' he said.
All across the swing states, Bush has moved ahead as Republicans have begun to win the fierce ground war of the election. Republicans have taken leads in Pennsylvania and Ohio, which should have been firm Democratic territory. At the same time they have secured their own turf, taking double-digit leads in states like Nevada and Missouri.
That is bad news for Democratic challenger John Kerry. Missouri is the most reliable bellwether state. It is a unique crossroads of American demographics: where north meets south and east meets west. Missouri has the same percentage of black Americans as the US as a whole, the same goes for union members, and its rural and urban mix is also a reflection of the national average. In all presidential elections but one since 1900 Missouri has backed the winning candidate. And at the moment Missouri is backing Bush. He has an 11-point lead.
The reason is simple: the 'war on terror'. It is the centrepiece of the Bush campaign, and Clay County's Republicans are ruthlessly on-message. 'The biggest issue is keeping America safe. It is keeping our families safe,' said Kate Porter, an attorney who is the Republican county chairwoman.
That echoes what the Bush campaign is saying nationally. The threat to America from terrorism has been used as the focus of the campaign. Bush's stump speech, repeated each day, pumps the terrorism theme relentlessly. Democrats have accused the Republicans of scaremongering, but the move has struck a chord. Even here, in the pretty county seat of Liberty, seemingly so far removed from any outside threat, fear of terrorist attack is rife.
America's heartland is afraid. As Maggie Boyd, 66, sat in the picturesque town square she spoke of the recent school massacre in Russia as having a direct relevance to life in Clay County. 'You just don't know if someone is going to go into my grandson's high school and do that here,' she said.
Boyd is voting for Bush. She sees the war in Iraq as an integral part of the 'war on terror'. For her, the pictures aired daily on TV news of bombs in Baghdad are part of the same fight that brought down the World Trade Centre. '11 September changed everything for me. Bush was right to go into Iraq,' she said.
For Democrats, however, there is now relief that the war in Iraq has at last become an electoral issue. After weeks of damaging insults over Kerry and Bush's respective Vietnam records, America's political debate has finally tackled the real war that is happening today. Kerry has re-emerged as aggressive on the war. Last week he openly attacked Bush for creating the Iraqi mess. It is now Kerry's mission to win the election by slamming the Iraq war. It is no simple task. Bush has consistently held healthy poll leads over Kerry on issues of national security. But the new Democratic strategy mirrors the ploy used by Bush's campaign guru, Karl Rove: hit the candidates on their strengths, not their weaknesses.
Certainly, anti-war opinion is out there. Both campaigns in Clay County admit that the war has polarised people like nothing else in a generation. Mike Springer, a local businessman, is not shy about his thoughts on Bush. 'I loathe him,' he said as he drew on a cigarette outside his office. 'I grew up in the Vietnam era. I see a lot of the same stuff as then. The lies, and you see all these boys coming home with no arms, no legs,' he said.
There is deep anger about the war in the swing states and on the streets of Clay County. Phil Willoughby is a local Democratic candidate. His father, a lifelong Republican and a Korean War veteran, is now about to vote Democrat for the first time in his long life. 'He feels like he is being sold out. He thinks his President lied to him,' Willoughby said.
But the Republicans are not just a one-trick pony, hammering away on terrorism. They have amassed a formidable campaign machine that outguns and outspends the Democrats in most states. They have been organised in Missouri far longer than the Democrats, and have more staff. The Democrats are relying on outside campaigning organisations, like America Coming Together, to do much of the crucial legwork of voter registration.
Republicans have also fine-tuned their campaign to play on local issues. Much of the swing state battlefield is rural or semi-rural. Clay County is typical. At one end it bleeds into the metropolis of Kansas City and at the other is farmland and small towns.
These are the 'exurbs': the new political front line. Religious and moral issues play big here, and Bush's folksy style and religious rhetoric go down well. Kerry's liberal north-eastern manners do not.
'I believe Bush is a Christian man and that pleases me. It is not fashionable these days to say you are being led by a higher power,' said Boyd.
Much has been made of gay marriage, which Bush has pledged to make a constitutional issue. The swing states, even where they are Democratic, are often conservative in their social values. Clay County is no exception. Republicans in Missouri organised a ballot in August on banning gay marriage in the state. It passed overwhelmingly, galvanising the local Republican party. 'Since we got them out to vote once, it is easier to get them out to vote again,' said Porter. 'There are still some Democrats we haven't run out of Clay County. But we are working on it.'
Willoughby believes the Democrats can still win. 'Missouri is still a swing state. We are more mobilised in Clay County than we have been in a generation. It is still early. We have six weeks left,' he said.
That is true. As the election moves into its final stages, many voters are starting to pay attention for the first time. Messages that took months to deliver earlier in the year can now be got across in just days as every newspaper and television station is full of election coverage. With the crucial presidential debates about to start, Kerry can still turn around the swing state battle.
But the backdrop is still one of fear and terrorism. No one is immune. Margene Thorpe, doing a volunteer shift in the Liberty local museum, voiced her fears. 'We wish we could go back to where we do not have to be so afraid. But that will never happen again.' She, too, is voting for Bush. Her husband, Derle, sat beside her and echoed her thoughts. 'Freedom is not free,' he said. 'It has high costs.'
If the Democrats' new strategy of making the election a referendum on Iraq is to succeed, then the Thorpes' fear and support of the Iraq war as part of the 'war on terror' will have to be overcome. It will not be easy. 'How do you tell someone not to be afraid of terrorism?' Willoughby asked. 'We are all afraid of terrorism.'
Aren't Kerry & Edwards out there trying to scare terrorists with the, "We will de-stroy yewww" mantra?
"Security obsession"?
Does that mean that Americans don't want to lie down and do nothing while their friends, neighbors and families get killed by terrorists?
And that is also bad news for the anti-Bush maggots at the Guardian.
Boy, do you have that right.
It always was the issue, the dimwits just never understood that... and still don't.
Yes, but, but, but Kerry served in VeeyetNaaam, for heaven's sake.
They make that sound like a bad thing.
Liberals like to scare people about all kinds of things. The big difference is that what they want to scare people about is bogus (social security for instance). They meet the real threats to America with wishful thinking and the high hopes of the mighty French army as big the greatest hope for America.
They like to call it an obsession to imply it's a mental health problem to be concerned about the bastards that wish to wantonly kill Americans. That way our concerns seem trivial and goofy.
I am so happy for this. Living in Missouri which has been a democrat stronghold for years has been not very fun. We now have a republican legislature for the first time in 100 years. We have turned the tide and it feels great. If Bush wins Missouri he will win the election. I happen to live in Clay County and I will be proud when this county goes for Bush in this election.
Does that mean that Americans don't want to lie down and do nothing while their friends, neighbors and families get killed by terrorists?
The fact that a quisling heavy left rag like the Guardian can lay such an odious slur on this country's untrammeled [except in the squalid fever swamps of Manhattan, Beacon Hill and Georgetown] sovereign right to defend itself says much more, arguably, about the suicidally passive, nihilistic mindset of the Brits than it does about us. Most of the Eurotrash states [Germany, Spain, France] due to their own cowardly passivity, are already slated for Islamofascist "insurgency" in the near future. Et tu, once free Britain?
Yeah, kinda like this obsession I have for living and breathing.
Current Poll Assessment (mine).
Battleground priorities based on # of Electoral Votes
and current statistical tie status:
Penn. 21
N.J. 15
Minn. 10
OR 7
N.M. 5
States to reinforce w only ~3% margins:
FL 27
Iowa 5
Or How about, the voters want to destroy the threat abroad so they can live at peace at home.... And that is why they want George W Bush. Americans in Missouri or California are obsessed with Freedom and liberty not security.
Your conclusion from observations is very subjective and a little twisted.... I do not know who you are and from where you hail but you got it wrong...American citizens have no fear other than from oppression, that they have pride and resolve. Stay tuned and learn, Mr. Harris.
This race was never close. 70 percent of Americans backed President Bush when we went to war and most still do albeit for different reasons. Do you think we would desert him desert him because of Media and liberal campaign rhetoric or obfuscation? You got it wrong again...
Liberals cut the war up in little pieces to suit their end, just like they do on every issue. From that position they lie cheat and obfuscate the issue a la Dan Rather to cite a recent example...We FReepers and our acquired expertise are here to stop them and we have. The best is yet to come.....
John Kerry was nominated to lose, but the conspirators and their faction did not count on a landslide that would give conservatives free reigns in congress. They are desperately trying to keep it close but IT IS TOO DAMN LATE...The President's tax relief extension passed the senate with 90 percent approval...Those guys know how the election "cards are stacked" at this time and that discretion is the better part of valor (for them I mean).
MY call on the outcome? The honorable statesman and President George W Bush gets a minimum of 300 Electoral votes and he will not win one debate. You understand that Kerry has already taken both sides of every issue and wins by default...
Ray
ping to # 15
Yes, I wonder how that is going to play to the Dean Democrats.
I think alot of Democrats are going to seat this election out or vote Nader.
| President George W Bush gets a minimum of 300 Electoral votes and he will not win one debate.
The fun part is, I don't think their cheerleading for the Democrats works anymore. They've been so obvious about it that people have learned to apply the same sort of windage to "media news" that they would put on a statement from Terry McAuliffe. They are often the same anyway. |
I own a small service company in Missouri. My county in next to Clay county. I do not advertise openly, my business is all word of mouth.
My voice-mail has for four months said, "I support President Bush. If you want to bash him, I will not work for you."
Yes I have lost some customers but gained many more customers.
I call it outsourcing. I have gained customers who pay their bills and customers who are there when they say they will be. I cannot tell you how much this one stand has improved the quality of my life. This was done out of defiance. It was the best decision ever to work for quality people.
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I think we can be confident that the media will play the debates just that way. No matter what actually happens, the AP will tell us the next day that Bush lost. They'll round up the usual suspects — "Professor" Larry Sabato and "Historian" Doris Plagiarize Goodwin — to tell us that Kerry's superior intellect came shining through, unmasking Bush as a total idiot. The AP is so predictable on this stuff that most Freepers could write the AP political stories in advance, and get 95% of them right.