Bush Takes Double Digit Lead!

Time Magazine

Gooooooooo Bush!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

That's great news. I'm not the consummate Bushophile, but I certainly regard him as preferable to the alternative. If he wins the popular vote by a few percentage points, I'll bet he wins the Electoral College by 50--the Electoral College is tilted slightly in favor of the smaller states, where Bush and the Republicans have an advantage.

 

Bush leads in all 50 states according to AOL

In perhaps the first indication of a post-convention bounce for President Bush, he leads in all 50 states according to an online straw poll. Now, before the left on this board starts going bananas over this statement:

Yes, I realize that the poll is non-scientific.
Yes, I realize that the poll was conducted right after the convention.
Yes, blah, blah, blah.

Here's the article

 

*chuckle* Cyrus, you know a poll of Worldnetdaily visitors is going to favor Bush; if they did a popular vote survey on the site, I'm sure it would be at least 85 to 90 percent in his favor. That means nothing.

But the Time poll certainly does mean something. Some of this will be bounce, and some of this will probably stick. Either way, Kerry's going to need to turn it up a notch.

One caveat: When a couple of polls (one of them Time's) gave Kerry an 8-point lead after he picked Edwards, other polls didn't reflect it. So you've certainly got cause to hope, but don't be crushed if other polls reflect a narrower race.


Cheers,

 

I'm not sure Kerry has another notch--he's no Bill Clinton, you know.

 

Good point, mrw; if Bruce is feeling editorially objective, I suspect he'll tell you that Kerry showed he had an extra notch when he beat Weld in '96 (and going over Dean, Clark, and Edwards in the primaries was no small feat either), but I'd agree that he's still no Clinton. Kerry's campaign has, so far, borne some eerie resemblances to Bob Dole's--little discussion of his life in the Senate, heavy emphasis on his war record, and so on. Of course, there are some differences; the economy and Iraq are hurting Bush, who doesn't have Clinton's slickness. Kerry, for his part, doesn't have Dole's invincibility on the war record, and there's the whole "don't rock the boat" homeland security issue to contend with. At least he should do well in the debates, so there's that.

Kerry has brought some new people on board from the Clinton campaigns to help with the two-month stretch, so with any luck he'll be able to position himself as more than an opposition candidate with a war record. We'll see. I still think we're looking at a really close race.


Cheers,

 

Tom:

I can't imagine we wouldn't be looking at a close race. But I'm not convinced that Kerry gets a bump from the debates; I think most voters come away with a vague impression of who they like better, they tend to forget details. I just don't think Kerry's capable like Clinton of appearing affable, likeable. Bush is no master, but he's certainly more adept than Kerry.

I don't have a TV, so I've seen blissfully few ads, but I remember one a couple months ago with John Kerry speaking before a group of spellbound average citizens in an intimate setting, at the end he tries to smile--the man of the people--but it appeared painful, like a wince, as if this guy's a puppet and someone just yanked a string to make him smile--very unappealing. I knew then that good ideas or poor, polls aside, Kerry had an almost insurmountable task. I recently saw Kerry in another TV spot, and this time he did appear more human, but still...

There just aren't that many Reagans or Clintons out there, there certainly aren't for the Democrats. Gore and Kerry--it's hard to imagine two more wooden candidates--too bad for the Demos that Dean couldn't have comported himself with more maturity, moderated his extreme views. At least the guy, for all his wrong headedness, had some life to him--like Wellstone incarnate.

 

Insightful commentary, Tom! ("Zhiiiing.")

-Orson

 

I'm actually a lot more impressed (and surprised) by his winning the Democratic primary than beating Weld. Bill Weld started off being a great Governor, but he was his own worst enemy. He was a functional alcoholic that quickly got bored silly being the Governor, and it showed. He never really stood a chance against Kerry.

The voting bloc in Massachusetts is made up primarily of liberals, the elderly, and the working-class who buy into the crap that the Democrats look out for the little guy. They will blindly vote Democrat no matter what. I'm convinced the main reason that the MA Governors over the last 14 years have been Republican is because the of the sad-sack candidates the Dems have fielded.

John Kerry was elected as Mike Dukakis' Lieutenant Governor (think he downplays that?), and when Senator Paul Tsongas left the Senate to battle cancer, Kerry was appointed to fill the seat until Tsongas' term expired. Being an incumbent Democratic Senator in Massachusetts is about as safe a job as you can get. Ask Ted Kennedy.

So, Kerry really has never had a knock-down, drag-out fight like this one is becoming. IMO, Kerry decided to base his entire campaign on his Vietnam service, and now that it's backfired, he has no backup plan, and is beginning to panic. He certainly can't run on his Senate record.

 

After this convention Kerry's campaign is looking kinda grim, but as soon as UBL is caught or killed within the next month then you can put a fork in him because he will be done.

Either W has great timing or he is annointed.

 

The late, great Paul Tsongas--now there was a democrat with some integrity; he was a democrat in the old-school sense. If the democrats were ever to allow a candidate like him or Lieberman run the primary gauntlet, you might have a real horse race in November. Why did Clinton win in '92 and '96?--because he was likeable--who would you rather share a beer with, Clinton or Dole?--and most importantly, he convinced the electorate that his radical wife notwithstanding, he was somewhere close to the center fiscally--he more or less lived up to the fiscal promise.

 

Dole, by a longshot.

BLD

 

The Times Poll (which was taken before the RNC was over) is now bolstered by a Newsweek Poll taken at the end of the convention. It also has Bush with an 11 point lead.

NEWSWEEK POLL

 

That's significant--though it's worth bearing in mind that Newsweek also had Kerry with a double-digit lead in February or so, when few other polls did.

The more recent Rasmussen Daily Tracking Poll gives Bush a more modest four-point lead--49 to 45 percent. But whichever poll you go by, one thing are clear: He got a sizeable convention bounce (much larger than Kerry's).


Cheers,

 

Beer with Clinton or Dole?

I agree! Dole seems like a funny guy.

 

I think the problem was Weld himself whom I really like. He came across bland, smart and knowledgeable, but blad.

Massachusetts has not really had a dynamic Republican since the days of Elliot Richardson, I don't think, until now, Governor Mitt Romney, who showed excellent and sharp debating skills against a very able and capable Shannon O'Brien in the gubernatorial debates.

 

Re: Beer with Clinton or Dole?

I don't drink but if I did, I chose her over Clinton or Dole.

Of course to be candid, I'd choose Bush but he doesn't drink either.

 

Heh. That's the first time I can think of where I actually checked the "Photos" section of a congressional web site...

I love Dole's sense of humor; I've felt many times that if he was half as funny in the year leading up to November '96 as he was in the year following it, he'd have stood a very good chance of beating Clinton.


Cheers,

 

You've never seen him drunk.

He's anything but bland, trust me.

 

I think the only Republican that might have beaten Clinton in '96 would have been Lamar Alexander, now a U.S. Senator from Tennessee.