QandO

August 04, 2004

Something for Everyone
Posted by Dale Franks

The nice thing about elections is that, early on in the process at least, everyone can find some way to believe their guy will go the distance, and come out on top.

Take today, for instance. The New York Daily News' Zev Chafets thinks that Bush will win in a walk. Even now, Chafets thinks, Kerry's campaign reeks with the stench of death.

John Kerry is not a bad man. He probably wouldn't make a bad President. But he is a bad candidate in a terrible situation. He represents the wing of the Democratic Party that is imbued with a sense of its own moral, intellectual, cultural and social superiority. In short, he is the standard bearer for the unbearable.

These people don't comprise a majority of the electorate or even Democratic voters (how could they and remain an elite?), but they have convinced themselves that they and their candidate - if packaged properly - will prove irresistibly attractive to lesser Americans.

Boston, with its flag-waving and saluting and balloon-blowing was supposed to be a commercial for this new and superior brand of politics. But Americans are expert TV watchers. A lot of them voted with their remotes. Those who did watch weren't impressed. The Democrats' much anticipated post-convention bump turned into a thud. George McGovern got one of those in 1972.

Kerry now has 90 days to convince voters that a Bush victory in November would be, as his wife put it in Milwaukee on Monday, "four more years of hell."

The problem is, most Americans don't regard their lives as "hell" or Bush as Satan. The economy, after all, is not really in a Great Depression. In fact, it's doing pretty well. Iraq isn't Vietnam, and won't be unless there's a draft. The Islamic jihad against America isn't Bush's fault, either. A candidate who insists otherwise is bound to strike voters as detached from reality.

Kerry ought to know this, and he may. But his party is dominated, as it was in 1972, by people who talk only to one another and who are convinced that everybody despises Bush. They will judge Kerry by how hard he goes after the Crawford Beelzebub.

Right now the polls look even. But that's an optical illusion. The President has a Republican convention coming up and the power of incumbency to shape events between now and November. In other words, he's way ahead.

Meanwhile, William Saletan, writing in Slate, says that Bush is a dead man walking, politically. His poll numbers are so bad that it's practically impossible for Bush to win. It's Kerry's race to lose.

Before the convention, Bush led Kerry 48-46 among registered voters in the ABC poll. After the convention, Kerry leads 50-44. In the CBS poll, Kerry turned a 45-42 lead into a 48-43 lead. The CNN/USA poll goes the other way, boosting Bush from a 47-43 deficit to a 48-47 lead. That's counterintuitive, given the pro-Kerry media coverage around the convention. It doesn't square with the CBS or ABC polls. Nor does it square with an American Research Group poll, which bumps Kerry from a 47-44 lead to a 49-45 lead, or a Newsweek poll—taken on the last night of the convention and the night afterward—which bumps Kerry from 47-44 to 49-42. So my guess is that the CNN poll is off the mark.

Look at the numbers for Kerry in these trial heats: 50, 48, 49, 49. Even in the CNN poll, he's got 47. Kerry is that close to making a Bush victory mathematically impossible. And look at Bush's numbers: 44, 43, 45, 42. Even the 48 percent for Bush in the CNN poll is too low, given how few undecided voters show up for the incumbent on Election Day.

Look at the data going back to February. Over that period, Bush's top score in the ABC trial heat is 48. In the CBS and ARG polls, it's 46. During that time, Newsweek has repeatedly asked respondents, "Would you like to see George W. Bush re-elected to another term as president, or not?" The percentage saying Bush deserves re-election hasn't risen above 46. The percentage saying he doesn't deserve re-election hasn't fallen below 50. During the same period, Zogby surveys have repeatedly asked voters, "Do you think George W. Bush deserves to be re-elected as president of the United States, or is it time for someone new?" The percentage saying Bush deserves to be re-elected hasn't risen above 45. The percentage saying it's time for someone new hasn't fallen below 51.

Bush's job approval rating has been net negative in CBS surveys since April. Over the same period, his approval rating in ABC polls peaked at 51 but has been net negative in five of seven samplings. Even in the CNN poll, Bush's approval rating has been below 50 in four of the five surveys this year, including the latest. And in CBS surveys, the percentage of voters saying that things in the United States are on the wrong track hasn't fallen below 51 percent all year. The percentage saying things are moving in the right direction hasn't risen above 42 percent. In the post-convention CBS poll, 59 percent say we're on the wrong track. Only 36 percent say we're going in the right direction.

I think Saletan is putting a little too much faith in polls, myself.

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