May 13, 2004
BUSHONOMICS AND NOW BUSH'S WAR:
Dems divided over Kerry's performance Inability to take lead criticized (Jill Lawrence, 5/13/04, USA TODAY)
Kerry's team says it's amazing that he's tied with a wartime president after a $60 million ad campaign against him. ''They (the Bush campaign) thought they would unleash this and we would be standing before you dead. That is not the case,'' Kerry's campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill, said in an interview Tuesday. [...]But critiques persist. Among them:
* Kerry has failed to offer a dramatic alternative to Bush on Iraq. Kerry says he'd push harder to involve international institutions. He says Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should resign. But mostly he's stayed low-profile -- for instance, talking about health care Tuesday in Kentucky. ''This is George Bush's war,'' Cahill said.
Funny how the GOP never bailed out on what Bob Dole rightly called the "Democrat wars" of the 20th Century, but any time we have a Republican president leading us in war--Reagan in the Cold War, Nicragua, Grenada, etc.; George Bush Sr., in Iraq, W in Iraq--the Democrats head for the tall grass. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 13, 2004 1:15 PM
... with the other snakes.
Posted by: jefferson park at May 13, 2004 1:30 PMThe poll numbers showing Bush and Kerry about tied are being spun 2 ways. Dems are saying, like in this article, that Kerry is doing really well being tied with the incumbent. GOPers are saying Kerry should be well ahead given all the bad news lately and historical precedent (Dukakis was well ahead of Bush I until after the GOP convention). As a GOPer I'm hoping its the latter (and a poll showing Kerry and Bush about tied in CA helps support this)
The Kerry camp also seems to be forgetting that as the challenger you need to convince voters the incumbent must be thrown out - Kerry doesn't seem to be making this case or thinks it's so obvious he doesn't need to.
I am skeptical of all this. I think we are undergoing a shift in the political landscape, that the past is not necessarily a reliable guide, and that the polling methodology is increasingly unreliable.
Posted by: jd watson at May 13, 2004 2:28 PMShow me an anti-American and I'll show you a kerry supporter!
Get every vote out you can!
This is important folks. If you believe in what you say ... get going! Drive them to the polls if necessary.
Posted by: genecis at May 13, 2004 9:25 PMThe poster jd nailed it. Take the last big House/Senate results. Months of polling and yakking and predicting and analyzing didn't prevent the fact that pretty much everybody was surprised -- big-time -- by the extent of the GOP success.
Even in the new millennium, I'd say, all this polling is largely fruitless. Perhaps even a case where it's not so much DESPITE contemporary social science and technology, but BECAUSE of it.