Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Will Bush be reelected? It's awfully early to ask this question; after all, the primaries won't be wrapping up for over a year. And things can change fast; witness Bush the Elder, who was crusing at this point in his presidency and ended up getting waxed by a governor that had yet to become really well-known. I don't even know who the Democratic front-runner is to challenge Bush. I desperately hope it's not Joe Lieberman, who is great on the environment and a hyper-religious sanctimonious freakazoid on everything else. I like John Kerry, though I am mightily disappointed by his posturing against Vermont Governor Howard Dean. Dean would get my vote right now, but he has little chance to get out of the primaries. What politician is more tired and less interesting than Richard Gephardt? He's like Lyndon Larouche, always running, but never with a chance. You can't win on the "I'm virtually a Republican, except I hate free trade" position. I suppose I think John Edwards is the most likely candidate; he's from the South, he's personally appealling, he's (as far as we know) free of scandal. I like him, though he actively supports the death penalty. But in this world of spineless politicians of all stripes, no one seems to oppose it. Despite the unknowns, it's interesting to hypothesize. I've enjoyed reading the Washington Post's 2004 election coverage. These are the issues as I see them: --The economy....will it recover? It's not getting better, and even Bush's own guy at the Congressional Budget Office said the tax cuts aren't going to help anything. If jobs don't start coming back, the rest of this stuff may not matter at all. Then again, the Democrats are such total wusses that they may not be able to jump on this, since they can seemingly only offer smaller tax cuts. --Terrorism and foreign policy/national security ...I can't figure out if this is going to be an issue or not. The GOP will try to make it an issue, but how exactly will they differentiate themselves from the Dems? The Dems will continue the war on terrorism, too. I suspect Karl Rove will work the "stay the course, don't want to upset the ship" angle, but can they convince people that they're safer under Bush? More on Iraq in a minute. --Out of touch?....polls seem to be pretty darned consistent that the public feels like Bush isn't really interested in them, that he's for the rich, first and foremost. Even Republicans seemingly say this, because the numbers who say he's for the rich are higher than those who say they'll vote against him. But can that stay true? Will efforts to paint Bush as out of step with the public on the environment, abortion, various social issues, court appointments stick at all? --Anger...I do think there's going to be a groundswell of people who are just really pissed off at the direction that Bush is taking the country. This will, in part, be made up of a lot of folks who voted for Nader in 2000, but I think Dems will have some success getting the vote out on this. I don't know if it's enough to tip the balance, but it seems to me that there's a lot of anger and frustration out there. Can it be channeled? --Iraq....I don't know if Iraq can be an election issue. If things are still up in the air about the government, that hurts Bush. If everything is really settled, it will help. But either way, I think it's likely that the impact will be minimal. I think part of that will be based on whether WMD are found, honestly. If it is, then hawks can crow about making the world safer. But if WMD are not found, then can anyone make the argument that we're safer after this war? And let the record reflect that I'm glad Saddam is gone, and that I agree with what Friedman said in Sunday's NYT, that even without WMD the war has thus far accomplished something very, very good. But freeing Iraqis isn't going to tip many American votes, I believe, particularly sans WMD and, more importantly, sans Saddam. Where is that bastard, anyway? Who knows? I don't know if Dems can get it together enough to challenge Bush. But the Bush team has some landmines ahead, too, particularly if the economy is still down or if there is another terrorist attack. Let the speculation begin...... 1:35:17 PM    Let's hear it. []