[lit-ideas] Re: Fw: Re: [THEORIA] Bush's Lost Year
- From: Judy Evans <judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 02:04:06 +0100
Marlena
The polls show Kerry leads Bush on the War on Iraq (I think that
finding predates his recent speech). But Bush is winning on the War on
Terror. Bush leads in the polls overall (except for that one polling
organization, who analyse the data somewhat differently) largely
because the gender gap (which has been there since 1960!) has gone.
Kerry has not lost "women" overall, he has lost married women; single
women with no children are a strong constituency for him.
The assumption is that the married women are concerned about the
security of their families.
I don't quite see what Kerry can do about this; an incumbent President
has the edge anyway and one like Bush (ouch) even more so.
Judy
Friday, September 24, 2004, 11:55:59 PM, Eternitytime1@xxxxxxx wrote:
Eac> "Then I'd like Kerry to say, and believe, that his objective is to get our
Eac> troops out of Iraq asap.
Eac> Is this too much to ask of the supposed opposition candidate, or must we
Eac> choose between one guy's mismanagement of a stupid, wrongheaded war and
the
Eac> other's proposed mismanagement of same? Don't even get me started on
Eac> Kerry's weak national health proposal...Or his jobs program. (What
program?)"
Eac> Hi,
Eac> This was an interesting analysis of why Kerry has been losing ground. I
Eac> listened (okay, I admit it was a forced listening <wry look> and I would
have
Eac> preferred not to have done...) to a conservative talk show host today who
Eac> totally was berating Kerry and on and on. Fascinating, really. (I had
to go to
Eac> that level in my head. I suppose this is all merely another opportunity for
Eac> growth for me, right? I have family not speaking to me any longer [they
are
Eac> 'done'], frustration over how little authority our troops have HAD
overseas
Eac> [one of my friends who was there said that you wouldn't believe how many
careers
Eac> have been ruined as they have not been allowed to do what needed to be
Eac> done], how I cannot believe that since we went there SUPPOSEDLY to make
life
Eac> 'better' why in the world our Nat'l Guard and Reserves are not working to
Eac> re-connect the infrastructure there [which is what they are really good at
here in
Eac> Missouri, anyway--not really at the fighting end of things...the only
value I
Eac> have ever seen from them is in times of natural distress and practical
Eac> assistance...] IF I had really thought we ought to be over in Iraq,
then I would
Eac> have started from the beginning and planned it out accordingly--and made
Eac> awfully sure that the civilian world would not be in turmoil. I don't
think we
Eac> should have gone--certainly not without the sanction if not blessing of
the
Eac> UN--but if I were Kerry, I would have said and would be saying that we
will not
Eac> leave UNTIL we get things in order--and that there are certainly people in
Eac> the loop (probably the ones who are not listened to by Bush & Co) with
creative
Eac> ideas as to how to make this a win-win -- even now.
Eac> But, I think that the following has a lot of merit in terms of what I hear
Eac> (and have been hearing all week...)...and that is the message that Kerry
has
Eac> not been able to present and I do not know if he can or will. I do not
think
Eac> that the American will is for us to turn tail and run home and leave a mess
Eac> behind. (Okay, *I* don't like leaving a mess behind--if I break something,
I
Eac> fix it and/or replace it with something better--and make awfully sure
that the
Eac> person who owned what I broke is 'okay'...but most people just don't like
to
Eac> turn tail...)
Eac> Just a thought.
Eac> I cannot abide all the Bush-Cheney signs that are everywhere in my town.
I
Eac> almost cry with relief when I see one for
Eac> Kerry-Edwards--and want to thank
Eac> the people for having invested the $3 to get one. (and, in this suburb,
they
Eac> had to drive a long way to get them...the Bush people are HERE--and they
are
Eac> given out...)
Eac> If Bush wins, it will be interesting to see if Colin Powell stays or if he
Eac> goes (like that Chicago Sun article Andreas sent said...for alot of people
who
Eac> are floating on the edge are there, I think, because of people like Colin
Eac> Powell...)
Eac> Many thanks for listening to all of my family woes, btw. <sigh>...It's
hard
Eac> when all I asked for was a little documentation...(I never got any,
btw...but
Eac> the attacks were worse than any even on Phil-Lit <wry look> SO, some good
Eac> from Phil-Lit--at least I know that these things happen even amongst the
best
Eac> of us!)
Eac> Marlena in Missouri
Eac> _http://www.realclearpolitics.com/commentary.html_
Eac> (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/commentary.html)
Eac> So how can we explain what's going on? There are lots of possible reasons:
Eac> Kerry is a bad candidate, he's running a disorganized campaign, his
message is
Eac> all over the place, the Swift Boat Veterans hit him where it hurt, etc.
All
Eac> of these things are true to a certain degree and they've no doubt
contributed
Eac> at least in part to his decline in the polls. But I think there is
something
Eac> much, much bigger.
Eac> The most inexplicable aspect of this race right now is that the President
Eac> continues to rise in the polls despite the fact that the violence and
chaos in
Eac> Iraq is getting worse. Iraq has always been the defining issue in this
Eac> campaign and despite John Kerry's best attempts over the last few months
to turn it
Eac> against Bush by attacking from every imaginable angle, it hasn't worked.
Eac> Maybe that will change as the violence continues into October and Kerry
sharpens
Eac> his critique, but I wouldn't count on it.
Eac> The reason, I think, is very simple: America hates losers. I don't mean
that
Eac> John Kerry is a "loser" in the stylistic sense - though he does come off a
Eac> bit that way when we see pictures of his gangly frame in spandex bike
shorts,
Eac> windsurfing or throwing a baseball.
Eac> What I mean is that when it comes to the biggest issue in this campaign,
Eac> Iraq, John Kerry doesn't leave the impression with voters that he really
wants
Eac> to win the war. Everything we see, feel and know about John Kerry says his
Eac> heart is not in this war, nor has it really been in any war.
Eac> So even when he tries to articulate, _as he did yesterday in New York_
Eac> (http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0920.html) , a
strategy to
Eac> fight a more effective war than President Bush, it comes across more like
a
Eac> laundry list of gripes from a man who thinks the cause is already lost:
"Iraq is
Eac> a mistake and mess, and we need to do X, Y, and Z so we can get out as
soon
Eac> as possible."
Eac> On the other hand, President Bush is, for better or worse, a fighter. It's
Eac> not so much that the public thinks President Bush is a winner per se, only
Eac> that they know very clearly that Bush wants to win this war, and that
he's doing
Eac> everything within his power to try to win and it.
Eac> And even though mistakes have been made and a good number of Americans are
Eac> uneasy about the War in Iraq and the direction of the country in general,
when
Eac> given a choice between a leader who is committed to fighting and
optimistic
Eac> about winning or a leader who exudes the attitude that because the going
is
Eac> tough we ought to get going, Americans almost always prefer the former.
Eac> In 1972 nearly 60 percent of the country was against the war in Vietnam, a
Eac> war which at that point America had been fighting for almost a decade at a
Eac> cost of tens of thousands of lives. Yet the country still thoroughly
rejected
Eac> McGovern's defeatist "peace at any price" platform in favor of Nixon's
call for
Eac> "peace with honor" even as Nixon escalated the war effort in the spring
and
Eac> summer of the election year.
Eac> But even the 1972 analogy strikes me as inadequate, because I still think
Eac> the country is approaching this election less through the prism of Iraq as
Eac> Vietnam (despite all the focus on the candidates'
Eac> experiences during the Vietnam
Eac> era) and more with the feeling that 9/11, Iraq and the War on Terror are
akin
Eac> to Pearl Harbor and World War II.
Eac> With the _beheading of hostages_
Eac> (http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4502649,00.html)
Eac> and the _slaughter of children_
Eac> (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3636304.stm) now
Eac> standard viewing on our nightly news, it is
Eac> going to be extremely difficult for John Kerry to convince America over
the
Eac> next 40 days that Iraq is separate from the overall War on Terror. Even
Eac> further, it will be a remarkable feat if Kerry can argue that Iraq is a
mistake
Eac> not worth the fight and simultaneously convince the public he is as
committed
Eac> as Bush to waging an aggressive War on Terror. - T. Bevan
Eac> ------------------------------------------------------------------
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--
Judy Evans, Cardiff, UK
mailto:judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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