Bush Lock Picking

The best rebuttal I've heard of the "Bush is a lock" view comes from Demo pollster Stan Greenberg. OK, make it the only rebuttal.

Anyway, Greenberg thinks John Kerry can and will try to run to the right of Bush on the military and Iraq by arguing that Bush and Rummy & Co. have botched the operation. How exactly Kerry conveys his greater understanding of military affairs, aside from pointing to his medals, or rather the spot where his medals would be if he still had them, remained unclear even after Greenberg presented his views on CSPAN last week.

I also do not understand how Kerry can move an iota rightward on anything without setting off the progressives who have little use for Kerry to begin with.

Me, I think it is down to some huge Bush foreign policy gaffe in one of the debates that Kerry then pounces on -- assuming the man can, in fact, pounce.

Comments

[max power]

I think Bush's weak point is the economy. There appears to be consensus among commenters that all is well with the economy, but this is naive at best. The massive fiscal stimulus the GW and Greenspan have created via tax cuts and negative real short-term rates may have succeeded in giving the economy a temporary boost, but at the cost of record personal and government debt, a declining dollar, a real estate bubble, and the re-awakening of our old friend inflation.

Things are already falling apart as the last of the stimulus runs out. Stocks and bonds are both on the decline, and housing will come next. If the wheels stay on until the election he has a shot, but otherwise... he's out.

[drf]

Kerry can't pounce on anything. for gawdz sake, the man looks like a scooby-doo bad guy. he's a friggin moron. and i'm gonna do my LP vote (and am proud of my browne vote last time) as usual. (full disclosure: i flipped a coin, best of seven for the 1988 election - before i had an understanding of what libertarianism is)

thoreau noted below in the mega post that you can't underestimate the power of the dems to look stupid. gore lost 2000 because of gore. kerry could pluck this election if he weren't kerry.

off to listen to the "Feedback" version of howard dean's "take back the whitehouse". yarrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhh! friggin political asshats.

cheers,
drf

[s.m. koppelman]

Bush will make many gaffes in the debates, if there are any. He'll say plenty of incorrect things, repeat some long-since-debunked assertions, and make some new ones up. It won't matter.

As with Gore, who had a far better grasp of policy mechanics and facts in 2000, Kerry will be lambasted by Bush and by the, um, "liberal" media for being a show-offy Mr. Smartypants. Kerry will cite historical precedents, lay out complex policy formulations, etc., and Bush will come back with a zingy one-liner about Mr. Kerry's custom-tailored shirts and bark something about being "with us or against us". Bush will be declared the winner.

[Captain]

Hopefully, Americans will move beyond deciding the presidency based on who has better debating skills, and go for the better policies.

I agree Kerry should move rightward, something he's been doing since he got the nomination. (It can be hard to tell since he often seems to move in two directions at once.) And he has, in essence, been trying to get to the right of Bush on the war. another good move. His main fear is, while most of his voters on the left don't have anywhere to go, there are a small group that might go to Nader, and that could be enough to sink him.

[Kevin Carson]

Kerry seems, sure enough, to be trying to outflank Bush to the right on some foreign policy issues. For example, he attacked Bush for being "soft" on Hugo Chavez.

[B. Harrison]

Kerry's a senator. Senators don't beat incumbent presidents. Especially not senators who have that much of a dork factor goin' on.

[Dan]

he has, in essence, been trying to get to the right of Bush on the war.

No, he's been trying to get to the Mainstream Left of Bush on the war. His major pronouncements have been things like "Get the UN and NATO involved", "treat the war on terrorism like a law-enforcement matter", "repeal the Patriot Act", etc. This is a rightward shift from his "this war is based on a lie and fought by a fraudulent coalition" days, but it's still well to the left of Bush.

Getting to the right of Bush would be something like, for example, being hawkish towards the Saudis, Egyptians, and Syrians. Demanding a wide-ranging criminal investigation into Saudi and United Nations support of terrorism. Insisting on serious international sanctions against the Iranians. Flying to Israel to congradulate Sharon on the wall-building project. Stuff like that.

[Christopher T. Wetmore]

I'm going to go out on a real limb here, and predict record low voter turnout, short of something dramatic happening. I really can't see Kerry generating any enthusasim...he's NotBush, but there really ain't much policy difference between them. Smirk has little going for him other than he's president already, and I sense his support is softening.
Really, this means nothing now. We're still 5 months out, and the "political cycle", along with everything else, has gotten so sped up that I'm not even sure an early October Suprise (Osama Caught! Rumsfeld Resigns! Kerry's Pulse Found!) might matter...

[Rick Barton]

Dan,

We should be so fortunate as to have Kerry advocating the repeal of the the civil liberties threatening provisions of the Patriot act. He's even opposed, after he supported, (really, it's true) the sunsetting of those provisions that are set to do so, thanks to anti-Patriot conservative congressional leadership.

Kerry's most recent pronouncements on the Patriot Act are, for me at least, inscrutable.

[max power]

I agree with the general thrust of Jose's post, but it seems like so many people own stocks (at least in IRA mutual fund form) that market performance IS the type of "how does it affect me?" issue that is important in elections.

Regardless, Bush can hardly be said to have the economic "edge." http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/409608|top|06-16-2004::11:25|reuters.html

[cdunlea]

Yup, both are down. Since April both the Dow and the 10 year bond have headed for the crapper. As a mortgage professional it's my job to know this stuff.

Interpretation: the federal debt's catching up with us, and Wall Street knows it's just a matter of time before rates go up (and subsequently profit margins go down). Doesn't bode well for the economy, as Max said.

[Larry]

cdunlea, if you're that blinkered about our economy, then please know I'll be glad to take all your stock off your hands.

(The debt is the most overrated issue in the economy, followed closely by interest rates.)

[joe]

Max,

The "investor class" concept has a flaw - most of us with small stock holdings, through work, through mutual companies, through...don't have the immediate, viceral response to stock market ups and downs. We're in it for the long term, and the holdings are not really wealth we can access. Policies designed to "goose" the markets don't have nearly the appeal to us that they'd have for actual big investors, or mutual fund managers.

Weakly Standard fantasies notwithstanding, the Dow is not a kitchen table issue - the way Marx hoped it would be 😉

[Douglas Fletcher]

We're all doomed! Prepare for "The Great Depression of 2005" (my book of that title will be coming out soon -- I am taking advanced orders, also).

Interesting kind of depression going down where there's a couple hundred thousand jobs being created every quarter. If they'd had that kind of depression in 1929, Hoover would still be President.

[joe]

I actually agree with Dan. The anti-Bush position on Iraq Kerry's taking is in no way "on his right," unless you consider "right" to mean "competant" or "likelier to lead to success."

[R C Dean]

Yeah, joe, nothing says "competent" and "likelier to lead to success" like "greater UN involvement."

[drf]

RC:
"greater un involvement leads to success = i'll only put it in part way". lets get the eurotards more involved, too. i'm sure there's a social worker that can engage a potential terrorist on his "rage issues".

Rick:
did you see in CATO this morning an article on iraq and WWII? you noted this a coupla days ago, too. cato.org/dailys/06-16-04.html. they also have a dispatch on the use of PATRIOT to go after everybody else other than terrorists. "for the children", you know.

cheers. enjoy the onion today!
drf

[max power]

Ray: Would it be so hard to look at a chart before taking a shot at me? If you had, you would see that I was right: the Dow's been headed down since January and long bonds since February.

Douglas Fletcher: As I stated in my post, the job growth (which incidentally is modest compared to prior "recoveries") was the result of massive fiscal stimulus which has done more harm than good. I'm not gonna retype the entire post here.

Larry: Enjoy those stocks.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Well, max, I guess you better start stocking up on the pork and beans and bottled water. Let me know how things go down there in the shelter.

[max power]

OK, Douglas. You keep stocking up on real estate with no down payment and interest-only ARMs, and on stocks with 20+ P/E ratios and

[max power]

(wow, I threw in a "less than" sign and it broke the post)

anyhoo...

and LESS THAN 1% yield.

Come visit me in the shelter any time. There's pork and beans for all.

[Jose Ortega y Gasset]

Elections are not decided on bond yields or the S&P 500. The economic issues are much more fundamental. Do I have a job? Does my job feel secure? Can I pay the monthly bills? Can I afford a decent place to live? People vote on pocketbock issues... not financial page issues. Unless the economy implodes before November (and I mean implode, not sag), Bush will have the economic edge.

[Ray]

Max,

Stocks and bonds are BOTH going south? Now that is an interesting thing to say. Are you sure about that?

I'm not sure Max understands the subjects he's attempting to comment upon.

And, to be completely honest, Kerry is headed down the Mondale Expressway to Presidential greatness. To even consider this a close race is a pipe dream but it keeps the ratings up and gives the riff raff something to talk about I suppose.

[joe]

Actually, Jose, the macro indicators you identify are looking much better, not worse, than people's job prospects. While they are going strong, we've just barely managed to turn the corner from jobless recovery to anemic recovery.

If people are going to start saying positive things around the kitchen table in time for the election, it's going to have to start soon. What doesn't help Bush is that structural, non-recession induced job drags (globalization "loser" cities, or those whose economies are heavily invested in mature industries) tend to be concentrated in swing states in the Great Lakes/Upper Midwest. A big drop in textile barriers, for example could do great things for the country's overall numbers, and still do a real number on North Carolina's job base.

[Andrew Lynch]

Aliens versus Predator is coming out later this summer. I've decided that whoever wins...gets my vote in the fall. OK, thank you, I'm done for now.