60-40 NATION:

Can you like George Bush and not vote for him? (Mark Shields, December 15, 2003, CNN)

If Democrats are serious about involuntarily retiring President George W. Bush in next November's election, then they had better pay special attention to the most recent Los Angeles Times poll and the answers to this good question: Which one of the following statements come closest to the way you feel about President Bush? [...]

The good news for the Democrats is that a plurality, approaching a majority, of voters mostly dislike the incumbent president's policies and therefore might reasonably be expected to vote in 2004 for the challenger.

But the bad news is that better than two out of three of the likely voters like Bush as a person. And for most Americans, our choice for president -- quite unlike our less reflective pick for lieutenant governor or county recorder --is the most personal vote we cast.

Two out of three men like Bush as a person. So, too, do two out of three women. Three out of five self-identified Democrats personally like Bush. More than a majority -- 52 percent -- of liberals like the conservative chief executive personally.

These numbers mean that the Democratic nominee' s difficult mission will be to persuade voters who like George W. Bush personally that they can vote against his policies, next November, and still like Bush.

To pull that off, that Democratic candidate must reject the appeals and the advice of the zealous anti-Bushies, that fierce 20 percent of the electorate, who are convinced that the route to victory lies in just one more recital of the incumbent's mispronunciations, missteps or mistakes.

But to win the nomination they have to play to the 20%, which means that in the general the Democratic nominee will be closer to 40% than to 50%.

MORE:
Some Democrats Uneasy About Dean as Nominee (KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and ROBIN TONER, 12/19/03, NY Times)

Many leading Democrats say they are uneasy about Howard Dean's candidacy for president and are reluctant to cede him the nomination for fear that his combative style and antiwar stance will leave Democrats vulnerable in November.

They acknowledge that Dr. Dean has run a strategically savvy campaign that has made him the candidate to beat. But their worry has been heightened anew, they say, by Dr. Dean's statement this week that the capture of Saddam Hussein "did not make America safer" and by his suggestion that Saudi Arabia warned President Bush about Sept. 11 even though "I did not believe the theory I was putting out."

Senator John B. Breaux of Louisiana, who has long sought to push the Democratic Party to the center, said Dr. Dean's remark about Mr. Hussein's capture was "not the smartest thing to say." Mr. Breaux added, "Most people in my part of the country think the world is indeed safer without a ruthless dictator."

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 19, 2003 10:01 AM