Posted on 10/14/2004 4:47:29 PM PDT by IndianPrincessOK
October 14, 2004, 9:36 a.m. “This Guy Thinks We’re All Idiots” Dubya gets Kerry. Americans gotta love that.
One of my favorite scenes in Trading Places is when the Duke Brothers explain how the commodities market works. Randolph Duke has some study aids out on the table to help teach Eddie Murphy: orange juice, bacon, bread, etc. Billy Valentine — played by Eddie Murphy — says, "No thanks, guys, I already had breakfast this morning."
Randolph Duke, played by Ralph Bellamy, replies: "This is not a meal, Valentine. We are here to try to explain to you what it is we do here.
We are commodities brokers, William. Now, what are commodities? Commodities are agricultural products, like coffee that you had for breakfast, wheat, which is used to make bread, pork bellies, which is used to make bacon, which you might find in a bacon and lettuce and tomato sandwich."
When Bellamy says that last bit — "...which you might find in a bacon and lettuce and tomato sandwich" — Murphy looks deadpan into the camera with this absolutely brilliant, "this guy thinks we're all idiots" face.
I got the exact same vibe all Wednesday night. John Kerry is a better talker. He knows more public policy. He has plans and all that. But at the end of the day George W. Bush is the guy who looks into the camera and says, "Get a load of this guy."
I've always had two theories of this election. The first was the conventional wisdom: If Iraq and the economy were going well by Labor Day, Bush would be a shoo-in. But that's turned out to be not too reliable a rule of thumb, because the economy is neither bad nor good, politically speaking. As for Iraq, that's even more muddled. It certainly is true that Iraq is going poorly in many respects. But what the conventional wisdom — including me — failed to take into account is that Kerry could prove so untrustworthy that Bush could keep a double-digit advantage on foreign policy even though Bush's signature foreign-policy achievement is at best a work in progress.
My second theory involved an even more elemental fact. John Kerry is a sphincter.
Okay, that's a bit juvenile. But I've always thought the guy was unlikable. The clincher for me was the countless stories of him cutting to the head of lines with his Praetorian attitude — and chin! — bellowing, Do You Know Who I Am? He's a fop, he's a dandy. He's arrogant. He talks to you like you need it explained to you that you might find a slice of bacon in a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.
I always thought that this would be the clincher. Contrary to what the people who think George W. Bush is highly concentrated evil might believe, George W. Bush really is the more likable candidate. Just imagine if the roles were reversed. Imagine if the Democrats nominated a guy like Bush. Democrats would love Bush's folksy style and his tell-it-like-it-is convictions and humor. And if the Republicans nominated a guy who managed to marry into Big Money (twice) — who talked like a 1920s banker and looked like he was born in blue-pinstripe diapers — Kerry would be the constant butt of class-warfare jokes and the like.
Now, it's not necessarily to the American people's credit that they tend to vote for the more likable guy. Politics shouldn't be a popularity contest in the high-school sense. If we could have Calvin Coolidge back I'd take him in heartbeat, and he was nobody's idea of a good time. But that doesn't change the fact that politics by its nature and American presidential politics in particular are often decided by who the American people like more.
The problem for Bush is that in the first debate he wasn't the obviously more likable guy. His now much-ballyhooed scowls and his defensiveness took that advantage away. I don't know that Kerry actually became more likable in the first two debates, but I do think likability was removed as a factor. In the second debate, a much-improved Bush still seemed like he was trying to prove he could be a better debater. He was less defensive, but except for a couple of jokes he didn't try too hard to be himself and, hence, more likable. And under those circumstances, it's not shocking Bush would lose in a debate to John Kerry.
All of that changed Wednesday night. Not only did Bush beat Kerry on most questions of substance — I thought — but he came across as the infinitely more decent and genuine guy. When Kerry was asked questions about the minimum wage or health care, he switched to autopilot. Bing, bam, boom: Here's my four, five, six, seven-point plan to do this, that, and the other thing. But when Kerry was asked questions about his convictions, about his moral sense, about the kind of man he is, he wandered around like a drunk looking for his car in the wrong lot, bitterly muttering about how Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian. Bush talked about his faith, his wife, his moral center comfortably. He made fun of himself.
Kerry made fun of himself once too, but he chose poorly. Reminding voters of his grating billionaire wife is not wise politics, which is probably why he switched to talking about his mom. This was an intriguing move considering that Bush had just given sweet testimony about his wife. Not a few female readers emailed me to say they would not have been amused if their husbands had been asked to profess their love of them, only to be subjected to a speech about their mothers-in-law instead.
Regardless, I don't know that the third debate was a big enough — or watched enough — event to change the dynamics of the race. Kerry was clever about appealing (pandering) to low-income women and the rest. I do think if this had been the first debate, Bush would be close to coasting into reelection. But one thing I am fairly certain of is that these polls showing that Kerry won the debate miss the bigger picture. I think lots of people look at Kerry and Bush and say, in effect, "Sure, Kerry won the debate, but I liked Bush more." Kerry talks, walks, and breathes like a debater. If you said, "Please pass the salt" to him, he'd probably respond, "First, let me say this about that...." For example, if William F. Buckley were to debate John Kerry, I'd bet that most liberals would agree afterward that Buckley had won the debate. That doesn't mean that most liberals would suddenly agree with Buckley on abortion or anything else.
Here's my meager prediction: The polls will show Bush "lost" the debate, but the polls will also show Bush gained ground because of it.
Link?
Agreed. Algore (in his better moments) came off as a petulant child. Kerry can be downright snide and covertly hostile to us "masses".
Not sure if there is a link, it was on one of the talk shows after the debate, a focus group of undecideds (on MSNBC I think), out of 23 people they said Kerry won the debate but 17 would now vote for President Bush, 5 for Kerry, and one libertarian.
Objection. Assumes facts not in evidence.
Here is how I see it. In case no one noticed the Dems and the media have pulled a fast one on this topic. Jobs have always been reported by stating the unemployment figure, which if I'm not mistaken is about 5.6% right now. In any election in my memory that is a figure to be touted not bashed. Anywhere between 4% and 7% is within normal ranges. Full employment is a fantasy and not realistic.
Considering that in the weeks after 9/11 well over a million jobs were lost the economy has remained somewhat stable. Add to that high oil prices and still we remain resilient. I think it is really hard to beat up on the economy during this election, hence the play on numbers.
How do I love you TayRayZah? Let me count the ways? Is it because of the gleaming way that you look in the morning when we awake or is it how you slouch in your seat during my presidential debate? Could it possibly be because you are worth so many $$$$? Oh well, I really love my mom and she has meant a lot to me!!!!!!
I love it............
I agree .. because the poll internals have been giving Bush an extremely high edge. As far as ability to lead the country, ability to fight the WOT, trustworthy, means what he says, etc. Most of the scores I've seen on FOX say Bush is in the high 50's, and Kerry is in the middle 30's.
When Rush was talking about this (last week I think), he said that with these numbers in the internals, he cannot understand why the main poll is so close. I agree with Rush.
Also .. IIRC there was a thread today about the dems using the 2000 election model on which to base their polls for 2004. Evidently, they did the same thing in 2002 - and that's why they were so far off. If this is true .. Bush is way ahead.
Here, here! I thought his convention speech was awful but it got good marks, then his poll numbers tanked. Other factors were involved, I know, but am hoping same thing will happen after this debate.
In my wildest politico moments [most of the time], I'm yelling/saying about/to Kerry that he's just an empty suit.
I've simply never seriously considered that one such as Kerry can win the vote of the American people - - if I'm wrong....
And your opinion is to the contrary?
Lol, you're NOT in court, Socrates.
The conclusions of this report state:
ConclusionMy summary of this:The payroll survey may be systematically undercounting job growth, creating an unprecedented job growth gap between its total employment measure and the household survey's. In the past six months, the BLS has approved new techniques to smooth the household survey's measure of total employment in order to make month-to-month comparisons. Analysts can now point with confidence to the employment of a record number of Americans as of January 2004 and the employment of an additional 2.2 million workers since the recession ended.
Why has the payroll survey missed so much recent job creation? The BLS is skeptical of the start-up explanation, and recent benchmarks confirm the BLS's position. Self-employment is a different matter, and the latest statement by the BLS commissioner confirms the appearance of a new class of contractors. The evolution of the workforce--specifically, the demographic emergence of consultants and contractors who do not consider themselves self-employed--is a likely wedge between the surveys. Self-employment has grown by over 600,000 in two years, and misidentification by the LLC and consulting workforce implies a much higher number.
Finally, a new hypothesis quantified in this report is that decelerating turnover is artificially deflating company payrolls, creating an illusion of 1 million jobs lost since 2001. The heightened insecurity since September 11, the Iraq war, and the specter of outsourcing are logical explanations for reduced turnover. Here again, innovative new data series on employment dynamics from the BLS allow economists to confirm this hypothesis.
Policymakers and analysts should treat payroll data with caution when making comparisons to employment levels in 2001 and earlier years. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the best measure of job growth now comes from smoothed total employment reported in the household survey. Consequently, policies aimed at protecting illusory lost jobs are ill-advised. Employment in America is rebounding strongly, and the increasing dynamism of U.S. job markets should not be clogged by misguided and misinformed cures.
It concludes:
The economy has added more than 1.5 million payroll jobs over the past year and nearly 2 million jobs on the household survey. Most indicators point towards continued growth. Output is booming, the manufacturing outlook is positive, business confidence is high, and productivity continues to set records. Even such favorites among economic pessimists like data on long-term unemployment, manufacturing employment, and worker discouragement are showing marked improvement. Unfortunately for the pessimists, these are the facts that frame the debate on the economy today.
Another trick the Poodle uses is that he only uses the establishment survey for his jobs numbers. The establishment survey counts only payroll jobs at large to medium sized companies. It does not count jobs held by people who work as independent contractors such as consulting positions, realators, etc. It also does not count people who are self-employed. The household survey simply asks people if they are employed and thus counts people with jobs that are not counted by the establishment survey. I don't have the data, but I believe that the household survey indicates that there has been a net increase in the number of jobs during the last 4 years.
Excellent posts - #35 and #36!
VP Cheney gave the answer to your question in his debate with Edwards: Kerry/Edwards are using 2003 numbers that don't reflect the 1.9 CREATED this year. Also, they may be showing ONLY jobs lost and not new jobs created.
Hey, I've been "unemployed" for over a year, and making a fat living doing consulting work on my own for companies for which I formerly worked as an employee. I am one of Kerry's "1.3 million".
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