A Landslide Or A Defeat?

Zev Chafets makes the argument that George W. Bush will win in a landslide in November:

Kerry now has 90 days to convince voters that a Bush victory in November would be, as his wife put it in Milwaukee on Monday, “four more years of hell.”

The problem is, most Americans don’t regard their lives as “hell” or Bush as Satan. The economy, after all, is not really in a Great Depression. In fact, it’s doing pretty well. Iraq isn’t Vietnam, and won’t be unless there’s a draft. The Islamic jihad against America isn’t Bush’s fault, either. A candidate who insists otherwise is bound to strike voters as detached from reality.

Kerry ought to know this, and he may. But his party is dominated, as it was in 1972, by people who talk only to one another and who are convinced that everybody despises Bush. They will judge Kerry by how hard he goes after the Crawford Beelzebub.

Right now the polls look even. But that’s an optical illusion. The President has a Republican convention coming up and the power of incumbency to shape events between now and November. In other words, he’s way ahead.

On the other hand, Will Saletan says the poll numbers mean that Bush is toast and cannot win:

Look at the numbers for Kerry in these trial heats: 50, 48, 49, 49. Even in the CNN poll, he’s got 47. Kerry is that close to making a Bush victory mathematically impossible. And look at Bush’s numbers: 44, 43, 45, 42. Even the 48 percent for Bush in the CNN poll is too low, given how few undecided voters show up for the incumbent on Election Day.

The conventional wisdom is that undecided voters always break for the challenger, which his historically true. However, that is also a big assumption in an election this polarized. Kerry’s convention speech didn’t reach undecided voters. It helped Kerry cement his base, but he didn’t get the kind of bounce he would have if he’d set the undecideds on fire.

Part of the issue is that the Democrats hate Bush – that much is as obvious as anything. However, that doesn’t give an undecided voter much to go on. They may dislike Bush, but they’ve been given precious little to vote for Kerry on any other basis than he also dislikes Bush. My guess is that won’t motivate those voters much.

So I’m going to go on a limb here and make a rather gonzo prediction. I’m predicting that we’ll see the undecideds stay home in large numbers unless Bush makes a better appeal to swing voters than Kerry does (which he damn well better do). Either that or we’ll see a number of swing voters make protest votes for third-party candidates.

My reasoning is simple. An undecided voter at this point is someone who is a political outlier. The Democrats and Republicans have largely taken sides. The number of swing voters in this election is exceptionally low. Those voters are the ones who are sick of the two-party system and dislike both candidates. Kerry got an image boost with the convention, but that doesn’t appear to have translated into a significant base of support. Bush may get a similar boost, but I’m not sure he’ll get much of a base of support either. These voters are stuck between disliking Bush and disliking Kerry. In the end, I think Bush will have to appeal to them to stand much of a chance of being elected, but Kerry has largely missed his chance to get those voters on his side. Kerry’s speech preached to the choir more than anything else, and that’s why his convention bounce was so small.

I also think Chafets is partially right. I think the Democratic echo chamber in the media is overselling Kerry. The Democrats have a BYOB problem (not the kind of BYOB problem associated with Kennedy compound parties, however). You can’t think objectively when you Believe Your Own Bullsh-t. The Democrats think this country is as pissed off about Bush as they are. Yet if that were true Kerry would be well into the 50% range or more – but he isn’t. Kerry’s numbers, especially when he should be getting a major post-convention bounce, are abysmal. Saletan makes the mistake of taking a post-convention high watermark and arguing that represents Kerry’s real performance. It doesn’t – it represents the best numbers Kerry will have after one week free of attack. Instead, Kerry actually diminished his own bounce with a speech that was high on symbolic patriotism, but light on substance.

I’m going to predict that we’re going to see a significant break for Bush in the next 90 days. I think Kerry has reached his high-water mark. Had he done better at appealing to voters, he could have easily captured those swing voters. But he did not, and that gives Bush the opening to reverse the trend of undecideds breaking against the incumbant.

Bush has the advantages of incumbancy, being paired against a weak challenger, and having the opportunity to take the swing voters away from Kerry and perhaps even erode some of Kerry’s support on social issues and security. If he can do this (and it’s not going to be easy by any stretch of the imagination), Chafets may be right in predicting a Bush landslide.

On the other hand, Bush needs to avoid the BYOB problem himself – Bush can’t rely on undecided voters assuming Kerry is a rudderless fop unless Bush shows that A:) that he is and B:) that Bush can and will do better. The GOP convention will be a crucial time for Bush, and he’s going to need to hit a home run himself in order to capture the votes Kerry did not. If he doesn’t, the debates may indeed become Bush’s best hope of beating Kerry – and vice versa.