Month: October 2004

“Kerry’s conduct in this debate adds to the impression that he would make a competent President and able commander in Chief. Kerry’s task is no longer to convince people that Bush is a poor President, despite his supposed charm and whatever sentimental memory of his strength from the fall of 2001. People are seeing all of Bush’s shortcomings. Kerry needs to “close the sale”, and his debate performance tonight helps. People are still accumulating their impression of the man — he seems steady, smart, less political and more substantive, less doctrinaire than they have been led to believe. For many people, this is the fourth hour that they have spent with him, and I think that he is wearing well.
It doesn’t help that Bush’s credibility is now invested in Kerry as being an awful liberal and flip-flopper. I suspect many people are saying that Kerry doesn’t seem to be who Bush says he is, and what does that say about Bush?”

“10:10 Did the President of the United States really just ask Charlie Gibson if he “needed wood”? Where’s Bob Dole when you really need him…” – Wonkette, on a roll.

Kerry was right. Money quote:

President Bush himself would have qualified as a “small business owner” under the Republican definition, based on his 2001 federal income tax returns. He reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise. However, 99.99% of Bush’s total income came from other sources that year. (Bush also qualified as a “small business owner” in-2000 based on $314 of-“business income,” but not in-2002 and 2003 when he reported his timber income as “royalties” on a different tax schedule.)

On this point, and many others, Bush simply didn’t seem as well-informed as Kerry. That doesn’t matter a huge amount generally, but when you have Bush’s current credibility gap, it doesn’t help. —

Kerry 44; Bush 41; Draw 13. I think that gets it exactly right. What it doesn’t get is that Republicans will be energized again after this performance. Morale matters. And it has been slackening among Bush supporters. But Kerry didn’t lose any ground either. And the news of the last week keeps his momentum intact.

That’s my basic take, although the debate was more interesting than that makes it seem. On style, the president was clearly far better than in the first debate. I think he’s woken up and realizes he can lose this thing. He was aggressive, clear most of the time, had a good rapport with the audience and, as the debate went on, became more relaxed. There were moments early on, however, when he seemed to me to be close to shouting; and his hyper-aggressiveness, having to respond to everything, went at times over the line of persuasiveness. Early cut-away shots weren’t helpful either. He tended to look up at Kerry blinking fast, twitching a little, and occasionally smirking and even winking to friends in the audience. Not presidential. He was strongest on stem cell research, where most of his work was done by the questioner. But his clear formulation – “to destroy life in order to save life is one of the most difficult moral concundrums we face today” – was eloquent and correct. I’m with him on this one. I also found his response to the abortion question better than Kerry’s. How you can respect human life and be in favor of partial birth abortion is simply beyind me. Bush is also clearly right that the war on terror cannot be restrained merely to police work against al Qaeda. On all these things, his performance was immeasurably better than last week.

BUSH’S BLATHER: But he was also evidently flailing at times. Throwing around the old “liberal” label was hackneyed and seemed a substitute for argument. His distortion of Kerry’s healthcare plan didn’t flirt with being mendacious; it was an outright lie. His answer on the environment sounded okay but isn’t going to convince anyone. That he has to concede the complete absence of WMDs in Iraq is inevitably brutal on him and his argument about the war. The facts are simply against him, and it shows. He had absolutely no answer on his spending spree. None. If you’re a one-issue voter on fiscal responsiblity, Kerry is obviously your man; and this debate rammed that point home. And then there were some simply bizarre moments. Does anyone in America ever use the term “internets”? Plural? I’ve never heard anyone in my life use this formulation. The mandatory malapropism: Bush promised at one point that he’d be more “facile” in future. That’s going to be a hard promise to keep. After four years of defending the homeland, the president should also not be giving soundbites like “I’m worried. I’m worried about our country.” Hey, Mr president. Join the gang. And then ythere was the hilarious answer on the judicial appointments. Bush won’t appoint anyone who still believes in the Dredd Scott decision. That’s a relief. But, to be honest, it’s the kind of question a high-school president might give, not the president of the United States. Bush’s biggest failure was to detail Kerry’s record, rather than just describing it as “liberal”. “Show, not tell” is a good rule of thumb for effective criticism. And then there was the inevitable “mistakes” question. Bush didn’t answer it – except to say he wish he hadn’t hired Paul O’Neill. You’d think by now he’d have some kind of answer. But he seems to think he is incapable of error. That, in fact, is an obvious part of the problem.

KERRY THE DEMAGOGUE: Kerry was as strong and as presidential as he was in the first debate, and effective, I think, in countering the flip-flop charge. His strongest debate points were citing Republicans to criticize the president’s war management, giving far more concrete proposals on healthcare than the president, burnishing his fiscal conservatism, and demagoguing the reimportation of prescription drugs. Yes, it was horrible pandering on the latter but it did the job and Bush didn’t counter him. It’s so depressing that neither candidate gave the honest answer to the reimportation problem: it will decimate the pharmaceutical companies’ profits and wreck long-term research and development. But one thing you can tell from this debate: no one promised any new limits on government. Bush has killed that brand of conservatism dead. Kerry’s big new weakness is that he really does seem to have reverted to the notion that Saddam should have been left in power. The Duelfer report definitely gives him ammunition on this, but the president is right to argue that such a position makes it difficult for Kerry to have credibility with our current allies in fighting the current war. The line Kerry is trying to walk between appealing to his anti-war base while reassuring pro-war independents got a little shakier tonight.

AN EDGE TO KERRY: Stylistically, Kerry seemed, well, calmer. When the camera cut to him during Bush’s walkarounds, he was generally serene and respectful. His parries were cleaner than Bush’s; his mind seemed more complicated – but not to the point of complete paralysis. Far from it. The contrast between a man who can make an argument and one who can simply assert what he believes to be a truth was striking. If we have learned anything these past three years, it is that conviction is not enough. Skepticism, openness to other arguments, thinking outside the box or against a bubble mentality: all these are useful in a war leader and Bush has none of them. In some ways, Kerry seemed more experienced than Bush, which, of course, he is. All in all, I’d say that Kerry had a minuscule edge in both the substantive and stylistic contest. But the fact that Bush seemed alive and kicking as a candidate will help him regain some initiative as well.

A reader writes:

On 20 occasions, the incumbent President has been re-elected. Median margin of victory in the electoral college is 66%. That would require Bush to get 447 electoral votes.
On 11 occasions, the incumbent President has lost his bid for re-election. Median margin of loss in the electoral college is 37%. That would require Kerry to get 366 electoral votes.
If you want to define an electoral “landslide” as being 10% or more difference, then of the 31 occasions described above 29 were landslides (Adams lost by 5 in 1800 and Wilson won by 5 in 1916). If you want to define it as 20% or more, then 27 were landslides (19 of the 20 wins and 8 of the 11 losses).

See my point?

“This is ridiculous: Wright misinterprets his own videoclip (I am grateful that it is available uncut on his website, so that everybody can see for themselves). All I agreed to was that IF natural selection had the properties of embryogenesis (or “an organism’s maturation”), it would be evidence for a higher purpose. But I have always insisted that evolution by natural selection LACKS those very properties. And I insisted on that in the earlier portions of the videoclip.”
UPDATE: Bob Wright replies here.

Tomorrow’s election in Australia could be a sleeper issue in this election. If Howard goes down, Iraq will be the issue. Aussie Mike Jericho worries.

NO LONGER IN DENIAL: The conservative attempt to ignore what has been happening in Iraq is beginning to break down. Good for National Review and the Weekly Standard for dealing with the matter – however belatedly. If you want to know why Bush is in trouble, just look at the cover of one of the leading conservative magazines. If you’re Bush, you don’t want this kind of coverage in October.

How many Bush officials does it take to change a lightbulb?

None. “There’s nothing wrong with that light bulb. It has served us honorably. When you say it’s burned out, you’re giving encouragement to the forces of darkness. Once we install a light bulb, we never, ever change it. Real men don’t need artificial light.” – from Steve Chapman, via lotsa people.

Back in the early spring, I bet Michael Barone that Kerry would win this election. I’ll buy him a drink if I’m wrong. And to be honest, I don’t know who’s more likely to win at this point. But here’s a prediction I don’t mind making. This election won’t be close. Presidents seeking re-election very rarely win or lose a second time narrowly. Either they get trounced – Carter, Bush 41 – or they get re-elected handily – Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton. People make a simple decision whether the guy’s worth re-electing. Of course, the alternative makes a difference. My view is that most people don’t want to re-elect Bush but are still unconvinced by Kerry. But they’ll figure it out soon enough. Hence the big interest in the debates – and the huge swing since the first one. Joel Rosenberg of National Review looks at the Zogby data and worries:

There is some good news for the president. Zogby says “Kerry’s edge on the economy is gone. Among those who cite the economy as the top issue, the candidates are in a dead heat – Bush holding a slight edge,” (46 percent to 44 percent). And this: Bush “also leads among those who cite the War on Terror as the top issue” (68 percent to 26 percent).”
But by far the most interesting – and disturbing – finding in his poll is that “among undecided voters, only 15% feel the President deserves to be re-elected, while 39% say it is time for someone new.”
What if the undecideds break 2-to-1 against the president less than 30 days from now? We could be looking at a Kerry landslide.

Yep. In fact, I’d say a clear and decisive Kerry win is now the likeliest outcome of this election. Bush’s only hope is to tear Kerry apart. He can’t defend his record. Every day, the news undermines it. He is losing this campaign in the final stretch. So he needs to attack. And when a Rove candidate needs to attack to survive, it’s going to get ugly. Real, real ugly.

CHECK IN TONIGHT: I’ll be blogging after the debate as usual.