I am saying publicly what I have been repeating privately for a year, and doing so now, when the polling seems to look good for Kerry, so I can't be accused of capitalizing on the news. Just to reiterate: It doesn't matter how much gas costs, how poorly things are going in Iraq, what new torture memos surface, or whether there are new terror attacks inside our borders. John Kerry hasn't got a whore's chance in a convent, Bush is going to kick his ass all over the United States, and when we see the results in November, the idea that anybody ever thought Kerry had a prayer will seem as quaint and absurd as the brief flurry of "excitement" for Dukakis (or was it Kakdukis?) back in Old '88.Mmm-kay. But 130-some days is a looooong time in politics. If they are anything like the past 130-some days, Bush still has a lot of freefall room. Also, it's worth remembering, as we stagger toward the voting booth a few months from now, that the lawyers will be suiting up for the aftermath. One way or another, let's try to have a good, clean kill this time.
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
"Bush is a lock": Tim Cavanaugh goes for the balls-out, unqualified pick for November.
2 comments:
"Free fall"? From the way I look at it, Bush has nowhere to go but up. The economy is picking up, troops will be coming back from Iraq, gas prices are coming back to earth, etc. Plus, there are wildcards such as catching Osama or the Democrats pending debacle at their convention and Clinton sucking the oxygen out of the room.
I won't say Bush is a lock, but things are shaping up for him in November.
Actually, Eric, I think you are substantively on the mark. And perhaps Bush has hit bottom; I just don't know. But the economy has been improving for quite some time, Muqtada al-Sadr has downed arms in Iraq, and gas prices have been no more than a media side show. (As I've written before, it's unlikely that they've had any significant economic effect at all.) Still, the right-track/wrong-track polling has been going increasingly against Bush for months now. All the explanations I've heard for this incongruity are thoroughly unconvincing.
I can only guess that the reasons are unmoored from actual policy and are reflective only of a general desire among Americans for change. The fact that Kerry is such a ridiculously sorry candidate might be what saves Bush from his father’s fate. This would explain why a solid majority consistently polls “wrong track” but Kerry is unable to harness any of that dissatisfaction.
I would agree that this is probably still Bush's election to lose, though I don't doubt his capacity to do just that.
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