The Afghan and Australian elections - bad news for Kerry. Here's why.
by JohnHuang2
Recall how the media last week predicted the elections were bound to be wracked by violence, voter intimidation, wholesale fraud, and how they complained that polling staff were too lightly trained, easily bribed, and that the drug-funded opposition, which hates democracy anyway and knows it can never win power back in a free and fair vote, will do anything to disrupt the elections? But enough about Florida.
(Frankly, aren't you sick and tired of Campaign '04? We have to get back to the place we were, where Kerrytistas are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance -- like gambling and prostitution.)
Now, regarding the elections in Afghanistan, the sages of major media said the chances of mostly peaceful elections in a terrible, war-wracked 'Quagmire' like Afghanistan, nearly 3 years after the fall of the Taliban, were slim to none. I took this optimism to mean the chances of mostly peaceful elections were pretty good. Sure enough, the elections went mostly peaceful Saturday, with exit polls on Monday showing interim president Hamid Karzai, accused by al-Qaeda and the Deaniacs of being a neocon puppet of Christian Crusaders, not only winning the nation's first free election, but Afghans giving the neocon puppet the outright majority required to avoid a run-off. (Taliban leader al-Gore immediately demanded a recount.)
But, for the Kerrytistas, the mostly peaceful election wasn't the only bit of bad news during the past week. On Friday, the U.S. reported the nation's jobless rate held steady at 5.4%, below Clinton's election-year 5.6% rate; then came news on Saturday that Australia's Prime Minister John Howard wasn't being punished by voters for angering those pesky little 'Nuisance'-makers known as al-Qaeda in supporting the Iraq war; then came news late Sunday that followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had agreed to hand over their weapons, ending months of Nuisance against U.S. and Iraqi forces. (The only good news for Camp Kerry came late Tuesday, with word that Saddam's hernia operation was a success.) So, with mostly peaceful elections in Afghanistan and a key U.S. ally reelected in Australia and al-Sadrtistas disarming in Iraq and very low unemployment here at home, "evidence of (Bush's) failures (keeps piling) up all around him," wrote Kerry in a fund-raising e-mail recently. With Mr. Failure piling up a job approval rate above the key 50% mark, how much more Bush failure can Kerry withstand?
Actually, the Kerrytistas, with their boss coming off a very weak performance in the second debate, had spent the whole week on defense. They tried and tried to spin it as a win for Kerry, but look, you can put lipstick on a horseface, but it's still a horseface. Indeed, seconds after the second debate, you knew who won and who lost -- just by looking at the glum faces at MSNBC and CNN. Both cable nets said Kerry had put in a much weaker showing in the second debate, while Bush, his face wired-up with muscle motion detectors implanted by ABC News to track the tiniest scowl, more than held his own. Almost alone, Fox News commentators lauded Kerry's performance in the second debate. (My guess is that they were watching the first debate that night.)
Yet, as bad as Kerry's second debate showing was -- and, make no mistake, these debates are central to Kerry's White House bid since he wants to show that he, unlike Bush, can out-debate the terrorists anywhere, anytime -- more self-inflicted wounds were on the way. In an interview published Sunday in New York Times Magazine, Kerry said that "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists aren't the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance," like gambling and prostitution. And blogging.
Absorbing the lessons of the tragic Nuisance attacks of 9/11, Kerry vows to go after terrorists and to hit them using the only language these blood-thirsty killers understand: Search Warrants and Court subpoenas. In fact, as I wrote back in March, just wait till Kerry rattles those Tora-Bora caves with Indictments! And strongly-worded U.N. resolutions. That'll teach 'em to mess with Massachusetts! To show these Nuisancists he means business, Kerry will summon the rough justice of ol' Martha's Vineyard, hanging posters saying, Wanted: Osama, Alive or . . Alive. Pretty Please? It's all part of Kerry's plan for waging a smarter War on Nuisance. And if, after all this, al-Qaeda still doesn't get it, then -- but only then -- will Kerry deploy that ultimate weapon of last resort: He'll hold a summit. In town hall format.
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Today, of course, is the third and final presidential debate (I'm writing this early morning Wednesday). Just Bush and Kerry again -- Nader (whose motto is, 'Work like your 90 points down!') won't be joining, of course, but Kerry sounds more and more like Nader these days -- a clear sign he's worried about Mr. 'Unsafe At Any Speed', who's on the ballot in key battleground states, and that he's underperforming among core Democrats with just three weeks to go. In contrast, Bush enjoys near unanimous support among Republicans and right-leaning independents. Do the math: Bush won 271 Electoral votes and 48% of the popular vote in 2000. That's 48% of the popular vote for a governor against a sitting vice president in 'prosperous' times (the 'prosperous' stuff is debatable, I know, but let's leave that aside). You'll recall the late breaking DUI charge which rocked the Bush campaign and broke Bush's late momentum. Still, Bush got 48% of the vote and 30 states. Bush is now Commander-in-Chief, in wartime, with 50 approval in most polls and leads his challenger on major issues by whopping margins. If anyone here doubts Bush will get that 48% and rack up another 7 or 8 percentage points, let me know. I've got some lovely submarine property for sale.
Anyway, that's...
My two cents
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