GWB's biggest advantage over most Democrats is that he can walk away from the job after one term with no regrets. Gore and Clinton were both obsessed with gaining the job, and were willing to spend every dime you could earn in the worthy cause of keeping it. It is, for this reason, that I believe he will be re-elected by a landslide in 2004. Any Democrat candidate who shows the least bit of "Gore fever" will be roundly rejected by a public that knows now what a bullet they dodged in 2000.
The top-notch people Bush brought with him add an element that has been sorely missing from the Lott/Dole Republican party: competence. They UNDERSTAND that the media is their enemy equally as much as the Democrats. They also understand that nothing that happens in America before about January, 2004 (short of depression or full-scale war) is going to be remembered by the voters they have to play to for re-election. The liberals on this thread will continue to trash them for the next 3 years, but how many of them would do anything but vote for the most left wing candidate anyway?
Thus Bush is in a position to set the long-term debate on issues that the liberals and their lap-dogs in the media hate: Social Security reform, tort reform, pro-growth tax reform, and a move away from socialized education. They will move incrementally using the full four years, which will gradually move the debate away from the liberal frauds like "lock boxes" and class warfare. That way, whether Bush stays for eight or walks away, the public will be more informed, and the discussion more intelligent, than Clinton or Gore ever could have rendered... |
