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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: altair19 who wrote (61968)	10/21/2004 11:22:56 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 89467

Watch out, Charlie Brown. Lucy does strange tricks with that football. Pig Pen

To: altair19 who wrote (61968)	10/21/2004 2:52:46 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Message 20671060

To: altair19 who wrote (61968)	10/23/2004 1:57:37 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Why the Yankees' loss to the Red Sox could be bad news for George W. Bush _____________________________________ WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY By Jonathan Alter Newsweek Updated: 12:07 p.m. ET Oct. 23, 2004 I know, I know. Baseball does not determine the individual destiny of fans, be they ditch-diggers or candidates for high office. Baseball is supposed to be a break from politics, not another poll. Baseball, for all its intense rivalries, remains unsullied by the partisanship of the other fall classic, the presidential election. I also know that if they were forced to chose, some astronomical percentage of Boston Red Sox fans would say they prefer winning the pennant to their home-state senator and fellow fan John Kerry winning the White House. But what if one is connected to the other? I’d argue that the Red Sox come-from-behind victory over George Steinbrenner’s Yankees is an omen of what will (OK, might) happen on Election Day. The real struggle is already over. Even if the Red Sox lose the World Series, they have already fought the power—and won. And make no mistake: Bush-Cheney ’04 is the power—the team with the home-field advantage, the team that represents continuity, the team that the smart money is still betting on. The team that choked? Yes, some Yankees players (and many fans) are Democrats, and plenty of Red Sox players and fans are Republicans. But aesthetically, the Yankees are a Republican team, even if their color is blue, and not just because owner George Steinbrenner almost went to jail for shenanigans he pulled with Richard Nixon. And the Red Sox are a Democratic team, even if their color is red, and not just because a part-owner of the franchise, Tom Werner, is a Democrat. The Yankees have the biggest payroll in baseball history; George W. Bush has the biggest campaign war chest in history. The Yankees wear corporate pinstripes and believe God wants them to win; the Bushies wear corporate pinstripes and believe God wants them to win. The Yankees didn’t have the manpower to finish the job in the Bronx; the Bushies don’t have the manpower to finish the job in Iraq. The baseball team and the White House actually got together after September 11 and cooperated on an HBO movie, “Nine Innings From Ground Zero,” that featured Bush throwing a perfect strike from the mound before a World Series game. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani worked overtime selling the idea that supporting the Yankees, the president and the country after September 11 are all part of the same patriotic package. The underlying idea was to create a bandwagon effect. Karl Rove believes that voters like a winner, in the same way that some fans like going with proven success. If the candidate or team looks unstoppable, the theory says, a bunch of other fair-weather fans jump aboard in October. The Red Sox victory makes the Bush-is-inevitable line harder to pursue. A last-minute come-from-behind win by Kerry suddenly seems more plausible, which in turn will rally Democrats to work harder on Election Day. If Kerry goes in to the final weekend down by five points, well, the Red Sox won, for the first time ever, when they were down by three games. Bush’s basic argument is that electing Kerry would upset the natural order of things, where grownups like Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld—no matter how incompetent at the plate—keep us safe at home. Now the natural order of baseball—where the Yankees beat the Red Sox every year—has been upended, making it suddenly more plausible to throw out the incumbent in Washington, too. In the showdown series, change beat the status quo. The only thing Americans like more than a winner is an underdog who upsets a winner, especially a scraggly bunch sticking it to the uptown trust-fund crowd. When the Sox were losing and he wasn’t hitting, Johnny Damon looked like one of those longhaired Vietnam War protesters that Kerry used to hang out with. (While the Yankees’ Kevin Brown appeared like a well-scrubbed spokesmen for the Republican National Committee). But after he drove in six runs in Game 7, Damon’s hippie look is cool again—and Bush’s attack on Kerry as a dangerous Northeastern liberal is sounding a bit tinny. The whole subtext of the Bush campaign is to make “Massachusetts” into a code word for un-American values. That’s harder now, in Red Sox Nation. And if this election goes into extra innings, like Campaign 2000, remember this: the Red Sox battled back and won this time. It could happen again, in November. © 2004 Newsweek, Inc. URL: msnbc.msn.com

To: altair19 who wrote (61968)	10/25/2004 3:30:11 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

Two separate national popular-vote tracking polls, one from ABC News and one from Rasmussen Reports, show John Kerry making non-negligible gains on President Bush over the weekend. ABC reported Sunday that its four-day tracking-poll average tightened from 50-46 on Friday to 49-48 on Saturday "because Saturday was Kerry's best single day since this tracking poll began Oct.1." Rasmussen's three-day average shows a similar pattern: Tuesday-Thursday average: Bush 49.1, Kerry 45.9 Wednesday-Friday average: Bush 48.0, Kerry 46.7 Thursday-Saturday average: Bush 47.6, Kerry 47.2 Friday-Sunday average: Kerry 48.4, Bush 46.4 As you can see, that's a 2.4 point turnout just since Thursday-Saturday! The Friday-Sunday average represents "the first time Senator Kerry has held the lead since August 23." Granted, all of this movement is probably within the various statistical margins of error, but when it's happening in two tracking polls at once, I can't help but think something is going on here. But what? Why is Kerry suddenly gaining ground? Is it the Red Sox/Patriots/Massachusetts Coattails phenomenon? :)