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From: Strategic Forecasting <alert@stratfor.com>
Date: 2004/09/23 Thu PM 09:14:10 EDT
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Subject: Geopolitical Intelligence Report: The U.S. Presidential Election: On Its Own Terms
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Geopolitical Intelligence Report: The U.S. Presidential Election:
On Its Own Terms
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THE GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
The U.S. Presidential Election: On Its Own Terms
September 23, 2004
By George Friedman
Last week, we analyzed the U.S. presidential elections in terms
of foreign expectations, merely touching on the internal dynamics
of the election. This week, it is time to bite the bullet and
analyze the U.S. election as we would analyze any other -- on its
own terms.
From the beginning, there has been a single, overriding factor in
the 2004 presidential campaign: It is the first election since
1988 in which a substantial third-party candidate is not running.
In 1992 and 1996, Ross Perot captured a substantial number of
votes in critical states. In terms of the popular vote, Bill
Clinton took well below 50 percent in 1992 and just a shade above
50 percent in 1996. There is a great deal of debate as to how the
votes that went to Perot would have broken if he had not been in
the race, but it is our view that without Perot, George H.W. Bush
likely would not only have made a much closer run of it, but
probably would have been re-elected. Perot gave an outlet to
voters in Republican areas who deeply distrusted Bush's
internationalism but were equally uneasy with the Democrats' tax
policy.
In 2000, Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the presidency. In a race as
close as 2000 was, it is clear that, absent Nader, Gore would
have nailed down the handful of critical states that would have
given him an uncontested victory.
Certainly, we can say this much: The last three presidential
elections might not have been determined by third parties, but
these third parties certainly defined the dynamics of those
elections. Now, there is no full-bore third-party candidate. What
limits Nader's effect is that he is able to run only in a limited
number of states. He is on some important ballots, like Florida,
but it would take an extraordinary election -- as in 2000 -- to
make it matter.
The starting point of all analysis is in historical precedent,
but in this case, that means that we have to reach back to 1984
for an appropriate comparison. That is 20 years ago, but it was
the last time that a sitting Republican president was challenged
head-to-head by a Democrat. The 1984 race contains some other
parallels also: One of the charges against both Reagan and George
W. Bush is that they are simplistic and simple-minded, totally
unsuited for the job -- amiable but not particularly bright. In
each race, both have been condemned for pursuing adventurist
foreign policies. Both cases involve Democratic challengers who
served in the U.S. Senate and were broadly regarded as much more
deeply versed in policy matters. Both challengers are or were
liberals. In 1984, Reagan demolished Walter Mondale.
In considering this, two things must be remembered. First, no
Democrat from outside the former Confederacy has been elected
president since John F. Kennedy in 1960 -- 44 years ago. Johnson,
Carter and Clinton all came from the South. Humphrey, McGovern,
Mondale and Dukakis all came from well outside the Confederacy.
Gore was the only Southern Democrat to be defeated in a
presidential election, and that was as close to a dead tie as you
can get. Carter lost in his second try. So we can make the
following statement: It is not enough to come from the South if
you are a Democrat, but you cannot win unless you come from the
South.
There is a reason for this. Until 1960, the South was a solid
bloc for the Democrats. From reconstruction onward, the Democrats
could count on the region as their electoral base. It wasn't
enough to win the presidency, but it was enough to put the
presidency within reach so long as coalitions could be cobbled
together from other parts of the country. During the 1960s,
however, the South ceased to be automatically Democratic, given
the split over civil rights. While the far West (excluding the
Pacific states) became increasingly Republican, the Democrats no
longer had a solid bloc anywhere. If the South came in Republican
along with the West, all the GOP had to pick up were a couple of
industrial states to win -- whereas the Democrats had to build a
new coalition in every election.
This was why Southern Democrats had a chance of winning. Leaving
Johnson out of this (as there was a very different dynamic at
play there), for 40 years, Democrats could win the presidency
only if they at least split the South. That made the general
election a horse race, with Republicans and Democrats equally
scrambling in the industrial states and California. In practical
terms, only Southern natives were able to truly split or rally
the South. Thus, non-Southern Democratic candidates lose. The
reverse is not true: Nixon and Reagan were not from the South.
Second, the last president to be directly elected from the Senate
was -- once again -- Kennedy. Nixon was the last president to
have served in the Senate, but he had been out of the Senate for
16 years before moving into the Oval Office. Carter, Reagan, and
George W. Bush had all been governors. Bush Sr. had served in the
House of Representatives -- but again, long before becoming
president. Goldwater, Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Dole and Gore
all were rooted in the Senate. Ford had been House minority
leader before becoming vice president, and Michael Dukakis was a
governor.
There is actually a reason why senators lose elections. More than
others, they are in the business of taking policy positions. They
are constantly voting on bills, constantly making speeches that
are remembered, and they are somewhat less sensitive to public
opinion than Congressmen because they have six years between
elections rather than two. They figure, properly, that the things
they say and do in the first four years of their terms won't
affect them much in their last two years. That is true, but it is
also the case that when they run for president, all of these
votes, statements and positions that they themselves might have
forgotten and which might have been well-received in their own
states, suddenly are dragged out of the deep by teams of
sophisticated analysts looking for trouble.
Governors have this problem to a much lesser degree. For one
thing, they tend to deal with much more parochial matters.
Whether a highway should be built in a certain place is, of
course, a burning issue in that state and in that time, but it
rarely has national significance. Moreover -- and this is an
interesting fact -- speeches by governors are not recorded with
the precision that those of senators are, nor do governors
actually vote on issues. A huge amount of deniability is built
into the jobs of governors because the history-making machinery
of the U.S. Senate isn't there. People sort of remember what a
Clinton or Bush said or did on some subject or another, but
everyone knows what a Gore or Dole said or did -- and if they
don't, they can look it up. Somewhere in that record, something
will alienate some important constituency. All senators take
positions and shift them over time. It is an easy business to
make them appear inconsistent or unprincipled.
This year, the Democrats are running a non-Southern senator for
president. That means that they are starting the campaign with
two strikes against them. The Democrats are going to have a much
tougher time building a coalition in the South, which means that
they must focus heavily on the industrial Midwest and North, as
well as on California. This can be done, but it hasn't been done
by a Northerner in 44 years. Second, the Democrats have Kerry's
highly recorded political career in front of them, with thousands
of votes and statements. For the Republicans, casting him as
indecisive will be a breeze, leaving Kerry constantly on the
defensive.
The specific dynamic of the 2004 race also poses serious
challenges for Kerry. In looking at the polls, it would appear
that about 43 percent of likely voters have made the decision to
vote for Bush regardless of the course of the campaign, while
about 41 percent will vote for Kerry. That is, in effect, a tie,
and actually shows a larger Democratic base than in previous
elections. That means that the election battle is for 16 percent
of the voters. Of that 16 percent, about 6 percent are undecided
by reason of stupidity. How they vote or whether they vote will
depend on almost random events.
About 10 percent of the electorate, therefore, are the
intelligent undecideds. They are actively considering the
options. This 10 percent seem to be heavily focused on the war
against militant Islamists in general and on Iraq in particular.
They are far from anti-war voters, in the sense that they have
not bought into Michael Moore's view of the war as a vast right-
wing conspiracy, nor are they at all impressed with Bush's
execution of the war. Their view appears to be -- and it is
tricky and not altogether fair to sum up such a diverse and
fragmented group -- that the war against terrorism was forced on
the United States, that the war in Iraq was probably a mistake,
but that withdrawal is not an option. They are looking for
someone who can do better than Bush in fighting and winning the
war.
This should make it Kerry's presidency in a walk. In fact, he
thought it would, which is why he led with his military record.
Bush struck back at Kerry's center of gravity, attacking what
would have appeared to be an unassailable military record. With
his own military record known and discounted, Bush had nothing
much to lose. He not only tarnished Kerry's record, but forced
him onto the defensive when Kerry needed to be taking the
offensive instead.
But Kerry's problems are more than simply tactical. Kerry has a
severe problem on his left wing. Entirely apart from Nader,
Democratic voters have the option of staying home. Many of them,
particularly supporters of Howard Dean, have severe doubts about
Kerry. More important, they are a single-issue constituency: They
are anti-war. If they revolt against Kerry, he can't win.
That means that if Kerry appeals to the intelligent centrists by
acknowledging that the war must now be fought and offering
himself as a superior commander-in-chief, he faces the very real
possibility that he will bleed off support from his left. George
W. Bush had exactly the same problem in 2000: He waged a campaign
to take the center and did fairly well, but his campaign
alienated the right. Several million Republican voters stayed
home.
Bush has an advantage over Kerry this time. His right wing is
fragmented and can be motivated to vote on issues other than
Iraq. Abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage -- all rank as
higher-priority issues on the far right of the Republican Party
than does Iraq. Moreover, these issues seem to alienate primarily
those voters who are never going to vote for Bush anyway. The
center is so fixated on the war that these other issues tend to
have limited impact.
It is understandable why Bush opened his campaign with a series
of apparently random positions that appealed to his flank, and
then attacked Kerry directly at the point where Kerry had crafted
his appeal to the center. Kerry, on the other hand, is faced with
a huge problem: His far left has become a single-issue bloc that
is highly sensitive to his position on Iraq. The center is
single-issue and highly sensitive to Iraq. Any move that
satisfies one side will alienate the others.
This is why Kerry has had such difficulty defining his Iraq
policy. It is clear that his heart is in the center, and that he
would like to take the centrist position. His problem is that his
polls are telling him that his bleed-off to the left -- perhaps
no more than 3 or 4 percentage points -- could well spell his
defeat. That gives Bush the opening he needs: He uses Kerry's
senatorial record to paint him as inconsistent -- the antithesis
of the kind of leader the center is looking for -- while allowing
Kerry's political problem to make him appear to be consistently
wobbly.
Given all of this, it would appear extremely unlikely that Kerry
can defeat Bush. There is no precedent for a Democratic victory
with these dynamics, and the internal structure of the campaign
militates against it. Put simply, the idea that a wealthy
Massachusetts liberal will defeat a sitting Republican president
in time of war is a dubious proposition.
But that is the wild card in the election. Bush is an incumbent
president in a time of war. The public is much less sensitive to
the war itself, according to polls, but it is highly sensitive to
the idea of mismanagement of the war. This is what could pull the
middle toward Kerry without threatening his flanks. If Kerry
remains unclear on the war but centrist voters conclude that Bush
doesn't know what he is doing or that the war is going out of
control, Kerry can win the election.
His problem is that he cannot force this to happen. More than in
most cases, he must play the passive observer, benefiting from
Bush's failure. Kerry is trapped by his left -- preventing him
from offering war-fighting solutions -- and by the center,
preventing him from abandoning the war altogether. He also cannot
afford to appear to be hoping for failure in Iraq. Failure must
come to him.
That is certainly possible, and militant leader Abu Musab al-
Zarqawi is certainly trying to create a situation in which Bush
is toppled. Militants like al-Zarqawi care not one whit for
either candidate, but they do care for the perception in the
Islamic world that they have the ability to define American
politics. But it is not clear to us that al-Zarqawi alone has the
resources for a sustained campaign. He needs support from other
factions in Iraq. Thus far, that support has not materialized --
and that is because Bush does have a degree of control over the
internal evolution of political relations in Iraq.
Kerry's only hope is a massive shift in public perception of
Bush's management of the war. There are six weeks left to go, so
it is not impossible that the first northern Democratic senator
since JFK is about to take office. But it isn't the likely bet.
(c) 2004 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved.
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