Steven Den Beste has another interesting piece where he argues that Bush is setting Kerry up for a major fall in November. The relative silence of the Bush campaign seems to indicate this is true. Kerry’s post-Veep bounce has now largely evaporated, and even the latest LA Times poll shows the race a dead heat. Kerry still has some momentum, but its nowhere near where it should be at this point in the race. Den Beste argues that the worse is yet to come for Senator Kerry:
I don’t know exactly when the Republican campaign will finally get serious. It doesn’t seem likely they’ll wait until October, so my best guess is it will be in September some time.
And I am pretty confident that when they do really get serious, the consequences for the Kerry campaign will be catastrophic. After the November election, a lot of people are going to wonder why it was that anyone ever thought that Kerry had a substantial chance of winning.
And part of the reason it’s going to go so badly for Kerry is that there is very careful low-level preparation going on.
Den Beste points out that Bush is slowly but surely setting the ground to undermine Kerry, just as he did in 2002 with Daschle and the Democrats. The Democrats talked a great deal about the necessity of voting on the war – so Bush gave them that vote. In October. Right before the election. Needless to say, the Democrats had to choose between voting for the war outright or voting against it outright. It forced the issue and made the Democrats look weak.
The closer I look at things, the less worried I am about this campaign and Bush’s chances. Bush is the master of the political setup, and he knows that the Democrats are nowhere near as strong as they appear. As one article notes, under the surface the Democrats are a party divided. They don’t agree on Iraq. They don’t particularly care for Kerry. The only thing that unites them is their hatred for Bush.
The problem is that ideology has no appeal beyond the Bush-haters – and even then it’s not necessarily strong enough to win an election. The Republicans hated Bill Clinton with a passion in 1996, and it got them absolutely nowhere. Clinton was easily able to sweep away the taciturn war hero Bob Dole.
Get ready for history to repeat itself once again.
I agree with Den Beste, Bush is biding his time. He has something up his sleeve, some kind of electoral daisy cutter. While the Democrats will probably argue that Bush has bin Laden in a cell somewhere waiting for October, I think it’s going to be more subtle than that. My guess is that the Republican’s excellent opposition research machine has Kerry’s number. They know exactly where Kerry is weak. They also know that in this election, timing is everything.
If Bush is significantly ahead late in the game, the Bush-hating crowd will collapse. If you’re a Democrat who leans towards Nader because of Kerry’s support of the war who knows that Bush is probably going to win no matter how you vote, what are you going to do? You could vote for Kerry, but if he’s down by 5 points you know there’s a good chance that it won’t matter. So, that voter may well just take the plunge and pull the level for Nader as a protest vote. A lot of other Democrats will realize that Kerry’s a lost cause and stay home. Basic electoral psychology says that movements based on the dislike of another without a compelling candidate to focus that anger tend not to go places. Kerry is essentially a figurehead, the nominal leader of the Anybody But Bush movement – but he isn’t well liked.
If I had to guess, my guess is that Bush wants the Democrats to continue to bash him mercillously and savagely. My guess is that he knows that kind of boorish behavior will alienate the swing voters that will decide this race. Whoopi Goldberg does not represent “the heart and soul of America” as Kerry and Edwards seem to think. If the tape of that ever gets out, and chances it will, it is not going to endear Kerry to the American people.
All in all, it seems as though Bush is getting ready to hang Kerry by his own petard. Of course, the Democrats, who think Bush is a blithering idiot, will invariably walk right into it. Bush has made his whole political career on being “misunderestimated” by his political opponents – and this election appears to be no different.
Echoes of 1992 here. “Bush is gonna make his stand any minute now….and when he does, look out!”
1992? What’s that about, his campaign for governor? I could see 2000, maybe.
Meanwhile, JR, I hope you’re right about Bush’s strategy, but I’m more of the opinion that the sooner he gets his message out, the more it has a chance to spread by election day. Even though it gives Kerry an opportunity to spin and lie in reponse, I think voters are smart enough to discern the truth.
Trice, 1992 in relation to the Bush, Sr. campaign. We were repeatedly told he was right on the verge of surging past Clinton (and Perot for that matter).
Uh, Mark Bush senior lost the 1992 election becaused he either lied during the 1988 campaign with the famous, “Read my lips no new taxes,” bloviation or he simply broke a campaign promise of no new taxes. That cost Bush senior the trust of his base and along with it their support. The Clinton campaign really had nothing to do with Bush’s loss other than using that speech in campaign ads to bring to the attention of Bush 1 supporters that his promises didn’t mean a damn thing. Smart move, worked.
Right now Bush’s secret weapon is Kerry. Kerry is an absolutely pathetic candidate.
Even the Dems are saying that people still don’t know Kerry…well, there are 2 reasons why:
1) Kerry flip flops and waffles too much…people don’t know Kerry because Kerry has yet to choose who he really is…
2) Most of the Dems energy has been spent bashing and hating Bush…
I for one welcome the attention the DNC convention will focus on Kerry…because the more people see of Kerry the less they like him…
This isn’t 1992. The economy is much better than it was then, there’s no Ross Perot to siphon 19% of the votes, and Kerry is nowhere near as appealing a candidate as Clinton is.
The only comparison between now and 1992 is that there’s a George Bush running for reelection. Other than that the dynamics of the two campaigns could not be more different.
It’s a rerun of 1996, with Bush as Clinton, Kerry as Dole, and Gharibgate as Monicagate.
I can’t believe that you Republicans don’t realize that “a dead heat” means a Kerry victory. There’s a lot of undecided voters out there, and if Bush’s record hasn’t been enough to swing them, what will?
If you think these are hopeful poll results for Bush you guys are delerious. It’s like the football coach that enters the 4th quarter down by 50 points, confident that he’s lulled them into a false sense of confidence. It’s really very comical – “Any minute now! Oo! Oo! You Kerry voters are gonna get burned!“
Only you could take polling results indicating a very close race and make an analogy with a football team trailing by 50 points in the 4th quarter!
It’s called “reasoning”, AT. You might try to add some to your posts and see if you like it.
I already explained mine – a dead heat is a loss for the incumbent. See if you can find any political analyst who says differently, or a historical election that proves me wrong.
If Bush’s record in office isn’t enough to get people in his camp, what possibly could be? What on Earth is going to swing voters if everything Bush has done so far hasn’t been enough to appeal to them? What do they think he’s going to do differently, when he’s running on a platform of “it’s bad to change your mind”?
“What do they think he’s going to do differently, when he’s running on a platform of “it’s bad to change your mind”?”
It worked for Feather Duster back in 1944. Of course, we can hardly claim that nothing has changed since then; Democrats are no longer willing to openly court virulent racists (they disguise that as “seeking the support of the international community”).
In any case, both polling bias and Petulant Left attempts to marginalize any conservative opinion as beyond the pale have led to a false level of support for Democrat candidates in polls taken before the last few elections. Assume a swing of 2-5% for Bush when the actual votes are cast.