Guess we could refer to that area as "The Eastern Balkans." Meanwhile, back at the ranch, George is throwing sevens.
New York Daily News
George is on a roll
Wednesday, November 26th, 2003
President Bush took a pre-holiday fund-raising jaunt to Nevada yesterday. Makes sense - anyone on the President's kind of run belongs in Las Vegas.
Almost three years into his presidency, the straight-laced Bush has emerged as the Crawford Kid, a high-rolling presidential gambler with a lucky streak a mile wide. Lately, he hasn't been able to lose.
Take the economy. Three years ago, Bush bet that tax cuts would bring prosperity in time for reelection. But even he couldn't have imagined the 8.2% growth in gross domestic product that was just announced for the third quarter of 2003. Not since the days of Ronald Reagan have the good times rolled in with such a well-timed flourish.
Bush came up a winner on Medicare yesterday, too. Adding a prescription drug benefit always has been a Democratic demand. This year, Bush saw that its time had come. The safe move would have been a gentlemanly fold. Instead, Bush decided to steal the pot.
The President put his own bill on the table and challenged the other side to oppose it. Unbelievably, they did. A few sane Democratic senators refused to vote against their own issue, and they were enough to put the GOP initiative over the top. That makes Bush the guy who can say he delivered cheap meds to the elderly voters of Florida, Arizona and other swing states less than a year before the election.
Going to war in Iraq was another gamble. Bush could have settled for victory in Afghanistan. Instead, he decided to parlay success into a bigger jackpot. The game isn't over, but politically, Bush is way ahead.
This was obvious at the Iowa Democratic candidates' debate on Monday. Among potential nominees, only Howard Dean had a cogent position, and it's a sure loser; nobody has ever been elected to the White House by opposing a shooting war. The others sounded dazed. John Kerry and John Edwards still can't explain why they voted for the war - and then turned around and voted against funding it.
Meanwhile, the only Democratic candidate who seems to be wholeheartedly rooting for an American victory, Joe Lieberman, was barred from the debate by the Democratic National Committee.
Bush's war may not have killed Saddam Hussein but it is annihilating Democratic credibility.
In 2000, Bush ran as a social moderate, then swung to the right. This may be a matter of conviction, but it was also a shrewd political move. The President was gambling that the ideological rigidity of the Democrats would keep him in the center. Looks like it was a good bet.
In the Iowa debate, for example, the Democratic candidates all came down, in one way or another, on the side of gay marriage. This may be a principled position - or a pander to the party's gay-activist wing. Either way, it leaves Bush as the defender of traditional matrimony - a position shared by most voters. This is going to help him in 2004.
So will signing the ban on partial-birth abortion. Most Democratic lawmakers voted for the procedure. Six of 10 Americans are opposed to it. They won't be easily convinced that it is Bush who is out of the social mainstream.
Tomorrow, when George Bush sits down to his turkey dinner in Crawford, Tex., he will certainly give thanks to the Almighty for endowing him with a gambler's instinct and a hot streak.
But part of the thanks should be directed to Democratic congressional leaders and presidential candidates. They've made him the odds-on favorite for '04.
In politics as in Vegas, there are no winners without losers.
nydailynews.com |
