Patterico's Pontifications

10/3/2004

Why Bush Is Toast

Filed under: 2004 Election — Charlie (Colorado) @ 11:15 am



Wow. Being just a small time blogger myself, I’m not used to the amount of feedback I get guest-posting here. Thanks to all who took the time to post a comment… even those who called me a girlie-man.

I realize that I didn’t offer much as to my thinking as to why Bush is going to lose the election. It wasn’t solely a reaction to the Newsweek survey; it’s a feeling I’ve had for a while now.

Anyway, for those who are interested in the reasoning behind the madness, please check out my rationale at thoughtsonline.

Thanks again to all of you.

6 Responses to “Why Bush Is Toast”

  1. I diagree with your comments and think it is not the thinking we need right now. If everyone thought as you do, why vote? Why care? It is defeatist thinking, not clear thinking. Are the dems tricks getting to you? Look at the latest on their tricks on Powerline. If these people get elected, forget America the proud and see America the weasel. This is what appeasers look like, as with Carter. If Americans vote in Kerry, and he leaves Iraq to the mercy of their neighbours, America will not be a leader with power, but a country who, again, cut and ran. Better get working on the president being re-elected again, no matter how you see it, at least you will know you tried, and did not let him and the country down.

    dunner (630548)

  2. I already posted this on your Blogspot spot, but it occurs to me that I’d better post it here, too. Sorry for the repetition for those who read both.

    Mr. Strum, I hate to say this, but your reasons for despair are frankly ridiculous; I think the real reason you weep and wail is simply that you enjoy losing for some odd reason (and in that, you’re certainly not alone in the GOP). I’ll try to respond as briefly as possible.

    1) Media-driven October surprise: It only works when there’s a “there” there, as there was with the DUI. If there really were one, after four years of assiduous searching, it would have come out already. Nobody is going to believe a fake drug story; nobody is going to care about yet another NG story (with more forged documents?); and certainly nobody is going to give a rip about a NEIL Bush story, for heaven’s sake. Get a grip on yourself, man.

    2) Terror attack: the terrorists have been desperately trying to hit us hard ever since 9/11 and have been unable to succeed… but you’re utterly convinced that they’ll abruptly pull it all together between now and November 2nd, eh? There is a bizarre and nutty syllogism that Democrats fall into all the time, which I characterize as “it must be true because it would be wonderful if it were true!” You, like many of my fellow GOPers, have your own version: “it must be true because it would be dreadful if it were true.”

    There is no reason to believe that AQ can pull off an attack on American soil, and even less reason to believe than an attack on US interests abroad would rally support to Kerry. You offer none. You’re just certain that it’ll all end in tears.

    3) Election fraud: Given the numbers of voters involved in any of the major battleground states, the election would have to be Florida-close for fraud to play any role in it… and it’s not going to be that close in any Bush-2000 state, especially including Florida. Remember the title of Huge Hewitt’s book.

    Both Gallup and Quinnipiac have Bush up by 8-9 in Florida; Kerry has not lead in a single Ohio poll since August; Bush has been up strongly in Missouri since July; Bush is up strongly in Nevada and West Virginia; after a scare in Colorado, Bush is now up very strongly there; only lonely New Hampshire is still close, and that’s not enough (4 evs) to give Kerry the win even if Bush didn’t pick up a single Gore-2000 state.

    But of course, he will: Bush has been strongly up in Wisconsin (10 evs) since mid-August; he’s been up in Iowa (7 evs) since the beginning of September; and he has a good shot in the Gore-2000 states of Pennsylvania (21 evs), Michigan (17 evs), Minnesota (10 evs), New Mexico (5 evs), Oregon (7 evs), Maine (4 evs), and even New Jersey (15 evs). The only battleground state where Kerry looks at all secure is Washington state. Your Doomsday scenario assumes that Kerry wins ALL of these close races AND ALSO steals a big state from Bush. And your only reason to think this could be true — is that it would be dreadful if it were true.

    4) Undecideds break for the challenger: Finally, as I have pointed out again and again, Dick Morris is simply WRONG about this. It is factually incorrect. The undecideds in 1984 broke for Reagan. The undecideds in 1992 broke for Clinton (the challenger), but they also did in 1996 for Clinton (the incumbent). The undecideds in 1976 split between Carter and Ford. Morris has been repeating this canard for years now — and his electoral predictions have been wildly off for as long as I’ve been following him. He’s an interesting guy, but he’s just flatly wrong about this one.

    Look, I don’t know you, and I’m not a psychologist anyway (that’s my sister’s job), but it seems to me that one wonderful benefit of total despair is that it relieves one of all responsibility to work for victory. Why bother, when it’s foreordained that we’re going to lose? May as well just roll over and go back to sleep — or “throwing in the towel and wallowing in [your] misery,” as you put it.

    But when you throw in the towel, you actually make it slightly more likely that your nightmare will become reality… which means you’re wallowing in MY misery, and I wish you’d stop it. You are becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    So sit down, take a stress pill, and for God’s sake, grow a spine. God I’m glad you’re not a Marine in Fallujah!

    Dafydd ab Hugh

    Dafydd (df2f54)

  3. Whoops, my apologies, Mr. Sturm for misspelling your name.

    I should also have responded to your final point…

    5) Bush isn’t “fighting back”: What you mean by this is that Bush isn’t wallowing around in the mud alongside John, John, Ted, and Terry.

    You’re right. He’s not. And a good thing, too. No, not because I’m some pecksniffian dandy like George Will who thinks it’s morally wrong to strike below the belt.

    It’s a good thing because this sort of tactic simply does not work. It’s counterproductive; it blows back, to use the current expression. You’ll notice that it sure hasn’t worked for the Democrats so far: against an incumbent who has seen net job losses, an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, a huge increase in fear, uncertainty, and despair, alleged depredations of civil liberties, a shrill and growing anti-war “movement,” and skyrocketing energy prices, the Democrats have gotten no traction whatsoever! In fact, they have steadily lost ground since the end of their own convention, before, during, and after the Republican convention.

    Look at the CBS fiasco. Look at the attempts to attack Bush on his National Guard service, to claim that he has questioned [fill in the blank]’s patriotism, to claim that Bush has a “secret plan” to resurrect the draft, to claim Bush and Cheney are personally profiting from the war because of “secret holdings” in Harken and Halliburton, and even to claim (just a couple weeks ago) that Bush was a cokehead. Worked really well, haven’t they? I guess that’s why Kerry is up by 7 or 8, right?

    Look, I’m one of the first people who noted the fraudulent claims made by Newsweek about their poll… but forgetting that, just look at what the poll REALLY showed: in the poll taken immediately after the debate, Bush lost six percent of his support among Republicans, but Kerry lost an identical six percent among Democrats, and in addition, Kerry lost a statistically insignificant one percent among independents.

    In other words, the debate had no effect whatsoever.

    The only reason they got a drop from 49-43 for Bush to 47-45 for Kerry was that they oversampled Republicans in the first poll — and this time, they oversampled Democrats! The only thing the poll actually shows is that the debate moved nobody.

    So all this down-and-dirty dancing by the Dems has been completely worthless, has gotten them no votes at all, and is only turning people off in droves. They’re drowning in their own mud… so why in the world would you want Bush to jump in and drown alongside them?

    We’re in the final push now. We need partisans, not hand-wringers. Either lead, follow, or get out of the way. The very last thing that the Republicans need now is for you to split a faction off to commit hara-kiri in the face of the enemy.

    Dafydd ab Hugh

    Dafydd (df2f54)

  4. I vaguely recall an experiment from a chemistry class in school. After creating a solution we added drops of the dissolved substance and noted at what point the solution broke down completely.

    It seems to me that I watched a fragile solution break down in the first debate.

    Maybe it’s the thought that Kerry can say damn near anything before 55 million watchers and not be confronted for gaffes or flips. Maybe it’s the pain of watching a Bob Dole-like redux of speech impedimentia that resolved into endless repetitions of “hard work”. Maybe it was the stark contrast between Bush trying to think on his feet vs his clearly practiced, and superior, closing speech.

    More depressing than that Kerry’s nightmare will become my reality is that this President is the best we can put up to stand against him.

    Maybe it’s that, through aversive conditioning, Republicans will learn the lesson that while disaster at home can be survived, adversity abroad will destroy you.

    Maybe it’s that, in Pavlovian style, Republicans will learn that slick talk devoid of practical sense trumps plain talk and plain morality.

    Maybe it’s that, along with a super majority of the international class, many of our own believe we are not a fitting people to decide our own interests.

    Some talk of losing an election. To others, there appears to be much more than that at risk. The last time I felt this low was when it appeared that Clinton would be re-elected. No doubt, there were a lot of folks around then to say I was just a defeatist. Then again, maybe I was just insightful.

    Thomas Hazlewood (e1f98e)

  5. Or maybe it’s that George Bush will win, and Messrs. Hazlewood and Sturm will look like the hand-wringing nervous Nellies that they are.

    When Mr. Hazlewood felt sure that Clinton would win re-election, Clinton was way ahead in the polls… and sure enough, he won. Now Hazlewood feels the same way, despite the fact that Kerry is not “way ahead” in the polls, or even slightly ahead in the polls. But somehow, it must just “feel” the same.

    Hazlewood wonders if folks in 1996 would have called him a defeatist; I don’t know… did he also predict doom when George H.W. Bush was well behind Michael Dukakis in the polls — by double digits! — in 1988? Was he like that Colonial Marine in Alien II, intoning over and over “we’re history, man, we’re toast, it’s all over, we’re all dead,” instead of fighting for victory?

    If so, then yes, he was a defeatist in 1996… as well as every other race where he simply gives up on the war because his side lost a battle.

    I beg of you, both of you, to ask yourself how we would survive if our soldiers acted the way you’re acting.

    Dafydd

    Dafydd ab Hugh (df2f54)

  6. Thanks, Daffyd. And I say that earnestly because you’ve made me laugh. I have no doubt it would also raise hilarity among those who served with me over 20 years to hear SSG Hazlewood described as a “hand-wringing nervous nellie”.

    That same Colonial Marine also said something like, ” In case you weren’t keepin score, we just got our asses kicked!”

    As to my thoughts on Clinton’s re-election, I predicted that on the day Bob Dole’s name was mentioned as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, long before any polls. If it was not obvious to others that he was wholly incapable of two successive coherent sentences, then they weren’t listening.

    More than an election was lost as a result of Clinton in office and such will be true if Bush should lose to Kerry. The election would be one battle lost in a long retreat. The resultant policy debacles of a President Kerry could be catastrophic. Clinton’s legacy of appeasement and apology would be renewed. Obstructionism at home and abroad would be approved. Reasoned voices are already being stifled or shouted down. A pivotal point may be reached at which the damage done cannot be repaired.

    That’s a lot to be fearful of and no amount of rah-rah boosterism allays such fears.

    Thomas Hazlewood (e1f98e)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.0768 secs.