Here's how I would rank the possible pitfalls for Bush/the Republicans a year from now:
1. Economy. If the Dow is still hovering around 10,500 a year from now, that spells trouble for the GOP. Similarly, keep an eye on the jobless rate.
2. Environment. This is a topic of concern for more voters than most of us on this board realize. If the Democrats can rally the environmentalists, this would be highly significant.
3. Energy prices.
4. War weariness. You're right. At some point this will become a factor, especially if bin-Laden and Saddam Hussein are still thumbing their noses at us a year from now.
5. Budget deficit/raiding the Social Security "lock box."
6. Education funding (especially important to rising numbers of Hispanic voters).
7. Issues of importance to senior citizens, i.e., prescription drug benefits, which have been put on the back burner by the Bush administration.
You will notice that I did not include Enron. I'm not sure the Democrats have succeeded in persuading the American public -- yet -- that this is a Republican scandal. Notice, for instance, how most newspapers played the Army Secretary Thomas E. White story this past weekend ... not all that prominently.
I think Enron becomes a big political story only if it unravels over time as Watergate did three decades ago.
Frankly, my best guess is that we'll see very little change in voting patterns from what we saw in November '00. The country remains split racially, culturally and geographically, and I see no indication that any position shifting is taking place. |
