September 3, 2004
AN OBSTACLE:
Kerry's personality may be his biggest obstacle (THOMAS FITZGERALD, 9/03/04, Knight Ridder Newspapers)
Swing voters don't like Sen. John Kerry much, one recent poll suggests, and that's just the latest survey pointing to a stubborn "personality gap" he suffers versus President Bush. Some political analysts think simple likability is the Democratic nominee's greatest challenge as the presidential campaign enters its two-month stretch run. [...]Consider:
_A Zogby/Williams Identity Poll last month found that 57.3 percent of undecided or persuadable voters would rather have a beer with Bush than Kerry (even though the president doesn't drink alcohol.) The same survey, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, found that 67 percent of undecided voters liked Bush - and 52 percent disliked Kerry, while nearly a third said they didn't know enough about him to say.
_A more whimsical poll taken in late August for the American Kennel Club found that people trust Bush more than Kerry to walk their dogs, by 51 percent to 37 percent.
Such indicators may seem irrelevant compared to war and peace, but they provide clues to voter behavior because, after all, people choose a person as much as an agenda when they vote for a president.
"People seem to feel more comfortable with Bush," said Sherry Bebich Jeffe, a professor of political communication at the University of Southern California. "It has become a critical mass, and it's dangerous for Kerry."
By our calculations it's only barely top 10:
(1) A Popular President
(2) A Robust Economy
(3) An Incumbent Opponent
(4) A 60-40 Nation
(5) His Own Record
(6) His Lack of Ideas
(7) An Inept Campaign
then we'd slide the fact he's unlikable in around (8).
Posted by Orrin Judd at September 3, 2004 8:59 PMRight. So what are numbers 9 and 10, or have they not become apparent just yet? Seems to me that 1 - 8 cover the whole waterfront.
Posted by: Joe at September 3, 2004 9:17 PM9) The Left has expended all of its ammunition over the last 4 years. I mean if you've compared Bush to Hitler, say he stole an election or whatever then any real criticisms are tiny in comparison to the hysteria that's already been thrown at him.
10) And when the Republicans finally throw a couple of counter-punches after being mostly silent for the last 4 years the Left is too immature to handle it. "How dare they attack my patriotism I served in Vietnam and they didn't" is simply not going to convince anyone outside the already converted.
Posted by: andy at September 3, 2004 10:52 PMYou forgot his record of traitorous betrayals of his country and comrades and his obvious inability to reach an executive decision on the simplest matter.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at September 3, 2004 10:57 PMWhy was this guy supposedly "electable" again?
Posted by: kevin whited at September 4, 2004 8:49 AMHe fought in Vietnam. You've got to think Lt. Calley might have run a close second in the Democratic primaries.
Posted by: oj at September 4, 2004 9:06 AM