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

To: TigerPaw who wrote (63582)	10/28/2004 4:39:22 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

How can this election be so close? ___________________________ James Klurfeld October 28, 2004 With less than a week to go before Election Day, this is the phenomenon that for the life of me I cannot explain: Everything has gone wrong for President George W. Bush that could possibly have gone wrong and yet the race is still too close to call. If you had told me a year ago that the war in Iraq would be the mess it is today, I would have said that is very bad for Bush. But it keeps getting worse with each kidnapping, mass ambush and suicide bomb attack. A majority of potential voters now say they believe the war was a wrong decision. And if you had told me a year ago that oil would be at $55 a barrel, not only would I have scoffed but it would clearly be a dangerous blow to an incumbent president. In fact, the economy is bad news for Bush not only because it is not really producing jobs at the rate that was predicted; not only because the stock market has been stumbling as we approach Election Day; not only because growth continues to be less than what was generally expected and deficits are soaring; but because people's economic outlook is troubled. That should be devastating for an incumbent. And yet poll after poll, whether it be national or in key states, tells us this election is too close to call. I had believed for a long time that this election would likely be similar to the 1980 election, when challenger Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter. Through September and most of October the race was tight. But in the last weekend a large percentage of undecided voters broke for Reagan. The result on Election Day was a big win for Reagan and the Democrats' loss of the Senate. Nobody saw it coming. I suppose that could still happen this year, if not as dramatically. If even a small percentage of undecideds breaks more for Sen. John Kerry than for Bush, Kerry could still have a comfortable victory margin, if not a Reagan-size landslide. I understand the Republican approach to the election is that the nation is so divided that there are very few undecideds and that, in the end, voter turnout is going to determine the outcome of the election. Each side has about a 47-percent base in the electorate and the other 6 percent is probably leaning one way or the other. And it's been that way for months. The great Republican fear is not that these last undecideds will switch and vote for Kerry; it is that they will not vote for anyone at all. In fact, the reason that polls are not totally reliable is this turnout factor. Figuring it out is an art, not a science. Or, more honestly, a guessing game. But that doesn't answer my first question. Why don't more people see what I see: that Bush's presidency has been a failed presidency, that he has taken big gambles and those gambles have failed. Shouldn't there be an element of accountability? Isn't that what this election should be about? Bush hasn't been conservative; he has been radical, self-righteous and too easily manipulated by simple-sounding but impractical ideas. To name just a few: Fighting a preventive war. That is, invading another country with little or no support from most allies and against much of world opinion without any evidence of an imminent danger to our security, or, for that matter, taking the steps to make sure the outcome would be successful. Or: Cutting taxes across the board, especially for the wealthy, while fighting a war. Or: Saying part of Social Security can be privatized without any idea of how it will sabotage the program or how much a transition to a new one would cost. Has Kerry been that poor a campaigner that he has failed to provide a reliable alternative to Bush? Has the public been so easily convinced that there is something fundamentally wrong with Kerry that the nation shouldn't take a chance on him, although Bush has failed in so many areas? Is that tough-guy-from-Texas act really so believable? When I get ready to write my column next Wednesday, maybe I'll have some answers. realclearpolitics.com

To: TigerPaw who wrote (63582)	10/28/2004 5:34:44 PM
From: sylvester80	Respond to of 89467

Pictures speak 1000 words! I LOVE IT!

To: TigerPaw who wrote (63582)	10/28/2004 10:57:08 PM
From: crdesign	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Does anyone recall Colin Powell sitting before the United Nations (prior to the invasion of IRAQ) with satellite photos and illustrations stating the US military has hard evidence of everyone of Saddam H's weapons bunkers. How pray-tell did this installation slip by them? They (Bush admin) are and always will be full of crap. Their only motivation for invasion was for personal profit. Why won't Kerry's advisors capitalize on that fact? Are they too dumb too? Oye!