So how the hell come didn't Bush win in a pop vote and electoral college LANDSLIDE like REAGAN in 80-84 and his father in 88
The theocrats scare many people who are otherwise Conservative away
Because Reagan and Bush Sr. didn't have that political genius Karl Rove!
It's all in how you communicate the message. President Reagan was the greatest at this; we haven't had anyone like that rise up through the GOP ranks in recent years.
W's administration does a very VERY poor job in defending itself. If the Bush administration had a better marketing strategy, he would sit at 60% approval. There's no good reason for the Iraq war to be in doubt popular approval wise, there's no good reason for Social Security reform to be D.O.A., there's no good reason for school vouchers to be improbable politically. Bush just doesn't fight for his policies or his administration, he and Rove are just enamored w/ the rope a dope strategy, yet at some point these things need to be *solved*. Social Security, standards in education, energy independence, you have to hit back in order to solve these problems.
Plus, we can mock Kerry's liberal record, but he desperately tried to run as a centrist, and probably came off as such to at least a million voters who voted for him.