Four More Years!
Blogs for Bush
How ya feelin' out there, fellow Republicans? Time to take a look at the objective realities of the situation.
The polls are up, the polls are down, the polls are sideways - and polls are important; they can give us an interesting snapshot of what is going on with a particular representative sample at a particular time. But as the old saying that I'm just making up goes, "he who lives by the poll, dies of frustration when they don't do what is expected." The only thing you should really be interested in vis a vis polls as a determination of what is going to happen on election day is to wait for the first man to say "the only poll that matters is the poll on election day." What that means is the guy in question knows he's sunk. So far, neither candidate has said this, so each side thinks it can win.
As for me, in politics I've always advised everyone to look at what people do, rather than what they say or what is said about them. Tomorrow the President is coming to Las Vegas to do a bit of political rallying - I'll be there; and this is a remarkable thing. For my adult life I've been an observer of politics - but never an active participant other than casting my vote on election day. Consult what I do, not what I say - what I'm doing is taking time out of my busy and interesting life to help a man I don't know, have never met and will gain no direct, personal advantage from. As for the visit itself - the President is coming in the one county in Nevada that he didn't carry in 2000...a county which would have handed Nevada's electoral votes, and the Presidency, to Al Gore had just a few thousand more people turned up for Gore. What is so important, then, about this? I'll tell ya...
What is happening is that the President is going into Blue Territory in order to poach votes - in other words, to make certain that when the votes are cast, he carries the Blue area better than he did in 2000 to make his keeping Nevada's electoral votes all that much more certain. By moving into Blue areas, the President is doing something - telling us that regardless of what polling might show, he's confident that his Red areas are safe and secure - he knows he doesn't have to fire up the base, and he's trying to pad his victory margin just to make sure.
Over the next couple weeks, news reports indicate that Kerry will be concentrating on Wisconsin, Ohio, Minnesota, Nevada, Iowa and Florida while President Bush will spend his time and energy in Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan (in addition to Friday's Nevada visit). Take note of that - of the States Kerry plans to target, three of them are States Gore won in 2000 and each of those three States simply cannot be lost by Kerry if he wants to win the election - meanwhile, of the five States President Bush plans to concentrate on, only one of them was a State he won in 2000, and he can lose any four of them (yes, even Ohio) and still win the Presidency.
Consult what people do, not what they say - at this state of the game, the President would be known to be in trouble if, say, he was heading to Virginia and Kerry would be on top of the world if he was, say, headed to Georgia.
Now, lets all get out there - have fun (remember, this is politics - politics is fun stuff; not serious stuff like our families and friends), get involved, get out there and get to work. No excuses! You've got the time, so get out there and do the right thing. |
