Is John Kerry Really Losing?
Editorial by CK Rairden
October 25, 2004
John Kerry has struggled this entire campaign to even sniff the fifty percent mark in any public polling data. Right now he is down in nearly every major public poll and on Sunday pollster John Zogby delivered some particularly bad news to the Kerry campaign saying that Saturday was “another good single day of polling for President Bush. In today’s sample alone, he leads 50% to 43%—the first time we’ve seen either candidate hit 50%. Each candidate continues to tighten his own constituency, and undecided voters are now at only 4%.”
Mr. Zogby was referring to the data that is collected for his daily tracking poll.
President Bush is surging at the right time, but let’s look at the news items staring the Bush campaign in the face. Gas prices are at a record high. The Dow Jones Industrial average closed at its low for the year on Friday. There’s a panic among some that a flu vaccine shortage may cause death and mayhem as the flu season begins. The Iraq war is described with such terms as “quagmire” and with the focus group tested term of “a mess.” So—with all the bad news being put squarely on the president’s shoulders, is John Kerry really losing?
In short—yes.
The reason is simple; John Kerry is not a very good candidate. He breezed through a front-loaded primary and was never tested or vetted. He is unlikable, aloof and many describe him as haughty. Though he continues to invoke his four-month tour in Vietnam to this day in an attempt to toughen his image, many see him as a man that has his nails manicured and flies his personal hairdresser in for thousand dollar haircuts. He believes the Green Bay Packers play at Lambert Field. Many see Mr. Kerry as anything but a regular guy but as a soft “metrosexual.” At times he seems more concerned with pandering to the United Nations than defending America.
That does not play well with the voting blocs of the “Security Moms” or the “NASCAR Dads” This is one of the many reasons that John Kerry finds himself trailing a vulnerable president at this late date.
But that’s not to say that George W. Bush may come up short on the Electoral College scoreboard. Mr. Bush can lose on November 2nd even though he appears to be surging at the right moment. This race is still far too close to call. Seeing this—the democrats have assembled a team of 10,000 lawyers who are ready to challenge election results in nearly every state that is even close. The Associated Press reported that Kerry, “will not hesitate to declare victory Nov. 2 and [then] defend it. He also will be prepared to name a national security team before knowing whether he's secured the presidency.”
Mr. Kerry’s mindset appears to be—“I won, now prove I didn’t.”
His plan is to then dispatch six so-called "SWAT teams" of lawyers and political operatives to begin to file lawsuits and hold press conferences. This is a horrible decision and puts in danger the entire American electoral process. But the democrats seem to care little about that and if the Associated Press report is accurate, are in a ‘win at any cost’ mindset. This election must be won at the ballot box, not in the courts. And both parties have registered a huge number of new voters, and turn out in each state will be the key to actually winning with votes from actual American voters who are registered and legally eligible to vote.
But now the Kerry campaign has promised to make sure that attorney, activist and political operative turnout will be key as well. This reeks of desperation, and shows that even the Kerry campaign understands its candidate is trailing and are willing to employ “unconventional” means to rally John Kerry’s candidacy well after the votes have been cast and counted. The bumper sticker “Gore/Lieberman” was quickly lampooned into “Sore-Loserman” after the Bush victory in 2000, and it appears John Kerry is willing to take that several steps further.
If Kerry can’t turn this around and loses this race at the ballot box, those days may seem tame if the democrats follow through and try to again sue their way into the White House.
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