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Contemplating the L-word: Six reasons why the stars could be aligning for a Bush landslide in 2004. (Fred Barnes, 06/27/2003, Weekly Standard)

THE POLITICAL STARS are suddenly aligned for President Bush for a smashing re-election victory in 2004. This doesn't guarantee he'll win. And it doesn't preclude anything of political significance changing the situation between today and Election Day 16 months from now. What it does mean, though, is that if all goes as expected--and that's a big "if"--Bush will be in an extremely strong position against his Democratic opponent.

The stars consist of six factors, all of which appear favorable to Bush at the moment. They are: an improving economy, a successful war, a big domestic triumph, a boatload of campaign money, an opposition party in disarray, an a discredited big media. [...]

Again, the caveats. Nothing is assured. One can imagine a Democratic ticket--Lieberman-Graham perhaps--that would be competitive. Political scientist Larry Sabato calculates the 2004 contest now with 278 electoral votes probable or leaning for Bush and 260 for the Democratic challenger. That's a Bush lead, but not a landslide. And, of course, it's only a projection. But you have to like Bush's chances a lot better than any Democrat's at the moment.

Neither is this sudden nor are the caveats terribly sensible; it's just a fact of modern politics that all but our worst presidents get a second term and get it by a significant, even landslidish, margin. Hoover, Ford, Carter, and Bush I were denied but they required a Depression, Watergate, the Iran hostage situation, and the violation of a tax cut pledge in order to lose--with Ford nearly winning anyway. Meanwhile, Harry Truman won in 1948 despite facing general election challengers from the racist (Dixiecrat) and socialist (Henry Wallace) wings of his own party. Competent incumbents win.

And they win pretty big, at least in electoral terms. You could sit down and draw up all the reasons that Truman, Ike, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II should face close re-elections, but that's not what happens. Truman won 303 to 189. Ike won 457 to 73. LBJ won 486 to 52. Nixon won 520 to 17. Reagan won 525 to 13. And Clinton won 379 to 159. So, imagine that you want to argue that the closeness of 2000 and the conservatism of George W. Bush will mitigate against a landslide. Given that Mr. Bush's first victory most closely resembles the narrowness of Nixon's first and that his ideological extremism most closely resembles Reagan's, their re-election bids seem like proper comparisons for 2004 and they suggest the possibility of a 500+ electoral vote total. This may seem absurd at first, but add in the fact that Mr. Bush carried thirty states even in 200 and that the Senate will have about a 60 seat Republican majority after the 2004 election and you begin to see the massive advantage Mr. Bush starts with. Then take a look at the most significant "Blue" states and you find things like the following: Nixon and Reagan both carried CA, NY, NJ, MI, PA, IL in their re-election bids and all those states had Republican governors just before their current governor or, in the case of NY, still have one. PA even has two Republican Senators. And MN, which Reagan lost, and MA, which Nixon lost, both have Republican governors.

In short, no Red state is in play while every Blue state is winnable by Mr. Bush. A landslide is not only possible but nearly inevitable. There are three conceivable eventualities that could prevent it--Mr. Barnes scenario of a Lieberman/Graham ticket would make a landslide more likely not less, as it would drive away black voters without attracting any whites--they are:

(1) Terror. A domestic terrorist attack or series of attacks of such magnitude, daring, and success that they suggest gross incompetence on the part of the administration's anti-terror team. But even this would require that the administration's retaliation be ineffectual. Take out Bashir Assad and Muammar Qaddafi and few would quibble over their noninvolvement while the action would appear "strong", even if not proportionate.

(2) Economic collapse. This would require a massive spike in unemployment and a drastic drop in the stock market. This may be possible, but seems unlikely

(3) Scandal. If Mr. Bush himself were to be implicated in a personal scandal, some Clinton-type episode of accosting a young woman--or even worse young boys--he'd be toast. No other President in memory is so closely identified with the personal qualities he brings to the job. Other decent men have been president in modern times (TR, Taft, Harding, Coolidge, Ike, Reagan in particular come to mind) but none became president specifically because they were decent, as Mr. Bush arguably did. It was this dynamic that made the revelation of a twenty year old drunk driving arrest so devastating in 2000, perhaps costing Mr. Bush several Midwestern Catholic states.

A major sexual scandal would destroy him because his own constituency would take out their disappointment on him. This seems though like a rather thin reed for Democrats to rest their hopes on. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 28, 2003 10:23 AM