More On "Bush Is A Lock"

Yesterday, I pointed to Tim Cavanaugh’s argument that Bush is a lock for 2004. Since I promised to expand on this, here it is.

I don’t think Bush will have the kind of decisive win that Reagan had against Mondale. The electorate is far more polarized now than they were in 1984. This is going to be a very tight election. It will come down to a handful of battleground states, and there’s a very good chance that the winner might not come away with the popular vote but win in the Electoral College. The chances of a 48-state landslide seem about as remote as pigs flying – unless one candidate gets caught in some major scandal between now and Election Day. Even then, it’s still going to be close.

Cavanaugh argues that in a situation where troops are in the field, the most hawkish candidate always wins. This is true, to a point. However, most voters honestly don’t give a damn about what happens a world away, except inasmuch as it directly effects them. Terrorism continues to be a larger issue than Iraq for most Americans because terrorism directly effects us as a country while foreign affairs does not. In American elections, foreign affairs almost always takes a back seat to domestic concerns, and despite the aftermath of September 11 I don’t see much evidence that this trend will change.

That being said, there’s one rule of thumb that is almost a truism in politics: it’s the economy, stupid. If voters are doing well, they tend to vote for the incumbant. If they’re not, they don’t. This is why a recovering economy didn’t help George H.W. Bush in 1992 – even though the economy was doing well on paper, the voters didn’t feel it. There was a lot of nervousness about the state of the economy.

However, this isn’t 2004, and whether through policy or sheer blind luck, by Election Day the US economy should be booming. Unless there is a major terrorist attack our Saudi Arabia slides into anarchy and oil prices skyrocket, things are looking very rosy in terms of the economy. The press has been trying to talk down the boom, but it’s clear that the economy is in a much better position than it was in 1992. If people have jobs, if they have money in their pockets, and they’re not worried about the future, they will tend to vote for the incumbant.

Kerry is trying to paint a message of economic doom and gloom during an economic pickup. This opens him up to attack for being too negative, and it doesn’t exactly endear him to the American people. It’s not a sound strategy, and Kerry is going to have to change his playbook elsewise he’s going to get creamed. Right now the latest Rassmussen poll shows Kerry with a major deficit of nearly 20 points on his handling of foreign affairs, especially terrorism, and is surprisingly showing an 8 point gap (outside the margin of error by several points) on his handling of the economy. If I were Bob Shrum I’d be worried as hell about these numbers. If Kerry can’t easily beat out a very weakened Bush, he’s in serious trouble.

Here’s my guess at the way things are going to play out, barring any unforseen radical change to the electoral landscape (and such a thing is nearly inevitable)…

Kerry’s numbers are weak – almost as bad and in some cases worse than Bush’s numbers. The Democratic base doesn’t like Kerry, and are basing their votes on their dislike of Bush more than any other factor. At the same time the economic news is going to continue to get better while Kerry keeps sending a message that tries to paint the economy in the darkest possible terms. As the economy holds, and if gas prices continue to drop, Bush will return to being slightly ahead of Kerry. Bush will get his late convention boost and maintain a slight lead above Kerry through until the final days before the election. It won’t be big – probably less than 5 points if even that much.

Many Democrats will simply assume that Bush is a lock (52% of the American electorate believe Bush will be reelected, and only 34% believe Kerry will beat Bush as it is according to the latest Rassmussen poll) and stay home on Election Day. If you’re not wild about Kerry, and you think Bush stands a reasonable or strong chance of winning, what’s the point? Some of the hardcore anti-war activists will end up going to Nader, especially if Kerry picks the pro-war Democrat Richard Gephardt as his running mate.

In the end, it will still be a squeaker, but Bush will be reelected on the basis of a growing economy and depressed Democratic turnout. Bush may not be a lock, but Kerry most certainly isn’t either. It all comes down to how the electorate feels, and given that the current economic climate shows more rosy news for Bush it may be the economy that saves him from following in his father’s footsteps.