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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (608559)	8/23/2004 9:17:02 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Writing on wall for another one-term Bush __________________________ By Andrew Sullivan August 23, 2004 IN Washington, some of the icons are well known to the public and some retain almost guru-like status among the cognoscenti and are content to have their fame restricted to a few blocks around the White House. One such nerdy eminence is Charlie Cook, of the wonkish but often indispensable National Journal. Cook knows polls and districts and congressional races the way a sea-fisherman knows tides and currents and shoals. And so, in a relatively becalmed August, the big news was that Cook made a simple call on the presidential race. He says the election is John Kerry's to lose. But isn't it neck and neck? Aren't the national polls dead even? Aren't we forever being told that the US is a 50-50 nation and nobody is likely to break from the pack? And didn't Kerry get the most anaemic bounce from his convention in many a year? All of the above may be true. And next week's Republican convention will surely give George W. Bush a fillip. But it's equally true that the fundamentals in this race - and its direction - seem to be favouring the Democratic challenger, and that the US President is fast running out of ways to reverse the trend. This is how Cook sees it: "Bush must have a change in the dynamics and the fundamentals of this race if he is to win a second term. The sluggishly recovering economy and renewed violence in Iraq don't seem likely to positively affect this race, but something needs to happen. "It is unlikely Bush will get much more than one-fourth of the undecided vote, and if that is the case, he will need to be walking into election day with a clear lead of perhaps three percentage points. "This election is certainly not over, but for me it will be a matter of watching for events or circumstances that will fundamentally change the existing equation - one that for now favours a challenger over an incumbent." Now look at the numbers. In almost every poll Kerry has a lead of around four points or so. In almost every swing state, Kerry has a small advantage that is just outside the margin of error. Bush isn't clearly ahead in a single one of the critical states. He's even behind in conservative New Hampshire, and only just ahead in North Carolina. A majority of voters in every national poll say the US is headed in the wrong direction. Unsurprisingly, a majority also say it's time for someone new in the White House. And when you look at more localised polls in, say, Florida, you find Kerry opening up a small but resilient lead: 47 per cent to 42 per cent, compared with a dead heat in late June. The issues? Bush's sole source of strength is that the public still supports him in the war on terrorism and, as another poll showed last week, that matters to a lot of voters. But in May Bush enjoyed a 19-point lead on the terror issue. Now he's ahead by 10. On Iraq alone the race is even. On the economy, Bush is way behind. Ditto on healthcare. In fact, on every domestic political issue Kerry has a bigger lead today than he did in May. He may be boring, and his progress may be slow. But it seems unrelenting. When the candidates are appealing to their base voters, Bush does relatively well as a decisive, strong leader on national security. He has the support of 86 per cent of Republicans compared with Kerry's support among 79 per cent of Democrats. But among independent voters - who make up the lion's share of the undecided vote at this point - it's a different story. When polling firm Zogby analysed independent voters' concerns it found them looking a lot like Democrats: the economy has been the top issue for independents all year, with the war in Iraq in second place, the war on terrorism third, then healthcare. No surprise then that when the undecided are pushed to say who they are leaning towards, Kerry leads by 49 per cent to 31 per cent. Add it up. Kerry is now ahead by a few points. Of the votes still up for grabs, he looks to win almost twice as many as Bush will. And that fits with the usual expectation that incumbents tend not to win over undecided voters in the last stages of a campaign. More over, Kerry's Bush-hating supporters seem more motivated than Bush's. Kerry's lead in the blue states (the ones Al Gore won last time) is 17 points. Bush's lead in the red states that he won in 2000 is now only six points. How the President turns this around is not easy to see. He can try to rev up his conservative base further - by proposing state constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage in evenly matched Ohio, for example. He can put his more popular wife out there more and more to soften his image. At his convention he can parade social liberals such as Vietnam hero John McCain and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then there's the option of smearing and attacking Kerry. Last week saw the airing of a scurrilous advertisement by disaffected Vietnam veterans calling Kerry a liar. But none of these add up to a coherent strategy. Maybe he'll be lucky again. His fate is tied to events outside his control - the crisis in Najaf, the paltry job gains three years into a recovery - but it might also be rescued by them. A new al-Qa'ida attack might rally the country behind him; Kerry may implode in a Gore-like huff of condescension in the televised debates; war may break out with Iran; Afghanistan might have successful elections; Iraqi President Iyad Allawi may turn out to have more staying power. When the race is still relatively close you'd be foolish to rule anything out now. But if Bush maintains his current posture and strategy it's only a matter of time before he follows his dad into first-term oblivion. The Sunday Times theaustralian.news.com.au