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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (54044)	7/13/2004 7:10:34 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793843

THE WESTERN FRONT Give Me a D? Reporters analyzing the election sound more like Kerry cheerleaders. BY BRENDAN MINITER Tuesday, July 13, 2004 12:01 a.m. WSJ.com Rah rah John Kerry! If only for entertainment's sake, it's worth getting in the spirit of what the news cycle has in store for the soon-to-be Democratic presidential nominee from now until his party's convention in two weeks. Even coming out of that Boston "D" party, the story line for the John-John ticket is going to be that liberalism has a real chance of winning this time out. But cheerleaders aren't a good predictor of a team's performance. And by the looks of it, Team Kerry isn't walking onto the field from where Team Gore stepped off. The story the media may be missing this year is that the electorate is not nearly as evenly divided as it was in 2000. The success of President Bush's policies, Sept. 11 (which wiped away the claim that he didn't have a mandate to govern) and the war in Iraq have all changed the political landscape. Let's start where the last presidential election ended--Florida. The Sunshine State is becoming increasingly Democratic as more middle-class seniors retire there from the Northeast. But, as in many states, the key to winning is the Hispanic community, and in South Florida that largely means Cuban-Americans. Al Gore managed to do well by distancing himself from President Clinton's callous decision to seize Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint and deport him. This year the Cuban test isn't as clear, but Mr. Kerry may have already failed it in responding to a question by the Miami Herald. Mr. Kerry told a Herald reporter that efforts to petition the Cuban government for basic freedoms were "counterproductive," because they landed hundreds of Cuban-human-rights activists in the gulag. Mr. Kerry would have done better to check with Jimmy Carter before answering this one. The former president has praised the Varela Project, including while on a trip to Cuba. Meanwhile, as The Economist reported last week, there is mounting evidence that Republicans are successfully making inroads with Hispanics across the country. On several issues--education, religion, taxes--Hispanics naturally find themselves in line with the GOP. The No Child Left Behind Act resonates in the Hispanic community because fewer Latinos between 19-25 have a high school diploma (73%) than blacks (89%) or whites (93%). President Bush won 35% of the Hispanic vote in 2000 (near the 1984 Republican record of 37%), and the Bush campaign can reasonably hope to reach 40% this year. The Economist quotes Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat and the son of a Mexican immigrant: "The problem with Democrats is that sometimes they take our people for granted." New Mexico's population is 43% Hispanic, and Mr. Gore won the state by only 366 votes. Hispanics are also key voters in Iowa, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state--all close states last time out. In Pennsylvania--another state Mr. Gore won narrowly--Mr. Kerry's problem may prove to be his insistence on raising taxes--or, as he puts it, "repealing" Mr. Bush's tax cuts for the "wealthy." Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, these days looks more like a supply-sider than a tax-and-spend liberal. Since his election two years ago, he hasn't resorted to class warfare policies, à la Kerry-Edwards, to revive the economy. Instead of looking to soak the rich, Mr. Rendell increased income taxes only slightly--being careful to keep Pennsylvania competitive with neighboring New York and New Jersey--and is now in the process of cutting property taxes. He has also been working hard to persuade businesses to relocate to Pennsylvania by arguing that it will remain a tax-friendly state. Although Maryland isn't seen as competitive, national Democrats might want to take a look at the Old Line State. This is a blue state that is starting to blush a little red. Republican Robert Ehrlich defeated Kathleen Kennedy Townsend for the governor's mansion two years ago, partly on a limited-tax platform. And earlier this year the tax-and-spend wing of the Democratic Party tried rolling out a tax increase modeled after Mr. Kerry's proposals. The plan was to close a projected state budget gap by increasing income taxes on the "wealthy." Democratic legislators retreated under pressure, however, and then abandoned plans to reconvene this summer to try again when it became clear that the growing economy would bring in enough taxes to all but erase the deficit. Given this recent history, on election night look for Mr. Bush to do surprisingly well in Maryland. None of this is to say that Mr. Bush can count on easy re-election. War instability will continue to play to voter fears, and a fickle electorate may lose confidence in the president before he has a chance to finish what he started. The economy is recovering, but won't likely replace all the jobs lost over the last four years by Election Day. Mr. Kerry may yet cobble together an Electoral College victory by finding enough voters who are uncomfortable with the wrenching changes the country has undergone in the wake of the dot-com crash and the Sept. 11 attacks. But that's not the game Mr. Kerry's cheerleaders are expecting. Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. His column appears Tuesdays. Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.