Politick

Talking Points for Who Will Win

In case you get asked tomorrow, who will win?

Here is what to say based on Ahpah's game theory analysis of polling data:
* under all the various scenarios, Bush is a 2-1 favorite to win
* if Bush focuses his last day in FLA and wins, he improves his odds to 4-1

If you don't want to believe the polls:
* in 2000, Gore got 6% higher vote than the polls had predicted
* according to Zogby, the 'unpollable' young & mobile favor Kerry over Bush 55% to 40%

If you like to read the trendlines, it appears Kerry is surging:
* DailyKos, a pro-Kerry site, outed Fox News, a pro-Bush network, whose polls show that among likely voters Bush went from a 7 point lead on Oct17-18 to a five point lead on Oct27-28 to tied as of tonight .. a 7-point drop for Bush in two weeks

Is the surge real? Weekend polling is notoriously unreliable. We will have to wait until tomorrow's polls.

Election Game Theory - How Bush Can Win

Guestblog from "Ahpah", who could take and ace the Google Labs Aptitude Test (GLAT - yes, it does exist!) if he weren't so focused on Hold 'Em. Using Game Theory, the great innovation by Nash (per A Beautiful Mind), Ahpah, not being convinced the Redskins Indicator has already called this for Kerry, applies his analytical mind to predict the outcome of this election:

Kissinger on the America's Mission, Post-Election

Our guestblogger Howard circulated Henry Kissinger's recent article in Newsweek, America's Assignment. While the good Dr. Kissinger supports Bush, this is not a pro-Bush piece. Maybe he wants his old job back? Here is a summary:

Possiblity of a Draft Increases Under Kerry?

Our guestblogger 'Howard' weighs in on the draft issue. The general consensus seems to be the need for more troops. Enlistments are down, and reservists are not showing for deployment to Iraq in increasing percentages. Where will we get the troops?

* Bush says by training Iraqis - shades of Nixon's Vietnamization policy. At least in Vietnam the Vietnamese troops could just be soldiers. In Iraq the insurgents are targeting those troops and their families to scare off new recruits. These Iraqi troops sometimes go about their missions with masks on, to avoid reprisals.

* Kerry says from other nations. Given the low levels of support for troops by even our strongest allies, this will not be easy. But most other nations realize the stakes of the Iraqi situation.

The Kerry side points the finger at Bush having to raise a draft once re-elected. The Bush side denies this, saying one of the lessons from Vietnam is a volunteer army performs better than a draft. But they still need to find the forces! Rather than deal with this issue, the Repubs try to turn it back on Kerry.

Our guestblogger Howard suggests that the logic of the situation points the fickle finger of fate at Kerry not Bush for a future draft:

Why the Election is So Heated

This election is apparently so heated not because of Iraq, nor the economy; instead, it's the cultural war, stupid! A good summary is at electoral-vote.com:

A new LA Times poll shows Bush doing well among lower and middle income whites, whereas Kerry leads among whites earning more than $100,000 a year despite his promise to roll back the Bush tax cuts for people making more than $200,000 a year. As president, Bush has enacted big tax cuts for the rich but the rich are voting for Kerry. What's up here? The same poll shows that 2/3 of the people who attend a house of worship at least once a week are voting for Bush, whereas 60% of those who attend religious services less than once a week are voting for Kerry, in part because these voters recoil at Bush's constant use of religious imagery. Lower income whites like Bush's proposal to ban gay marriage but only a quarter believe his policies have been good for the economy. In contrast, affluent whites who have benefited the most from the Bush tax cuts believe Bush's policies have hurt the economy. In short, far more than in previous years, economic policy is taking a back seat to cultural issues. The real divide seems to be between deeply religious lower income, lower education, voters living in small towns and rural areas who have conservative values on abortion and gay marriage versus higher income, higher education, secular, urban voters who have progressive views on cultural issues.

This election may complete a political realignment of profound proportions. Yelnick has previously noted that such realignments happen every 36 years, with major ones every 72 years. The last one was 1968, when, following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Nixon took the south from the Democrats, who had owned the south for 100 years, since the Civil War. This started a transition of the electorate from the Repubs being the party of Hamilton (think: Country Club Republicans) and the Demos being the party of Jefferson (think: farmers, merchants and the independent-minded ScotIrish), to a mixture; now we may be seeing a further realignment to the opposite positions! Developing ...

"Stolen Honor", Stolen First Amendment

The anti-Kerry movie, Stolen Honor, was to be broadcast by Sinclair Broadcasting on many of its TV stations the weekend before this election. A hue and cry ensued, and lawyers swarmed to action. Sinclair has backed off, and many are calling this a victory for free speech. It is anything but.

The very heart of the First Amendment is political speech. If the government is allowed to limit political speech, the wheels of democracy begin coming off. In this situation lawyers felt they had sufficient grounds under recent campaign reform laws to squelch the exercise of free speech by a private broadcaster. How did we come to this point, when lawyers rule the airwaves?

(This issue is not about this movie. I saw it last night on an obscure satellite channel, Link TV, which provides alternative views from around the world. They also ran a pro-Kerry film and compared the two for what they are - propaganda pieces. The anti-Kerry film is mostly about POWs in Vietnam who felt their situation was worsened and courage was sapped by visits from 'useful idiots' (a Marxist phrase) of the likes of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden. The film then attempts to smear Kerry with guilt by association for his remarks to Congress in 1971. Fairly clumsy smear at that: Kerry never associated himself with Jane Fonda (although they crossed paths), did not visit Hanoi at the behest of our enemies, and made his remarks at the request of Congress to summarize a fairly considerable body of war stories from returning vets which we now call the Winter Soldier Investigation. There is certainly controversy today over Winter Soldier, and many vets still burn with anger for Kerry's testimony, both for undermining the war effort and more seriously for implicitly smearing the many Vietnam vets who did their service with honor intact. In a democracy, however, the leading citizens have a duty to debate an unjust war, not blindly back the President. Kerry should be commended not condemned for living up to his civic duty.)

The road to political hell is paved with good intentions. In the wake of Watergate, we passed a campaign reform law that largely withstood Supreme Court review, but probably should not have. In the wake of the Supreme Court intervention in the election of 2000, we again passed even more campaign reform laws. These reforms have not removed money from politics, but they have put lawyers in the saddle.

It is said that hard cases make bad law. This is how many feel about the Supreme Court intervention in the election of 2000. Now expectations are growing that several State elections in 2004 will end up being challenged, if the race is close. In the close 1960 race, there were widespread allegations of electoral fraud in Illinois and other States, but Nixon had the good sense not to raise a challenge. After Gore challenged the hanging chads in Florida, the gloves are off and good sense gone. Only lawyers remain.

Kerry's Goose

Howard guest blogs on Kerry pandering to hunters, and asks whether this will be Kerry's 'Dukakis in the tank' moment of inexplicable incongruity:

Lets take Kerry at his word that he shot a goose. I've never known an American hunter that didn't carry his own game out, that's part of the deal. I do remember being a "beater" on an English blue-blood's pheasant hunt in Sussex and I had to carry everyone's game out. In that light Kerry's empty hand would make sense. We also have to ask the question, will Kerry's goose be cooked?

Perhaps what is good for the goose is better for the gander. The Wall Street Journal ran a story Friday that "Some Hunters Plan to Desert Bush," arguing that Bush's pandering to oil companies has led him to tromp over traditional conservative grounds of conservation of hunting & fishing areas. Instead, midnight changes in environmental regulations have allowed virtually unfettered drilling for natural gas in previously off-limit locations. Hence the hunters are now in play, fair game for Boston Brahmins in brand new down jackets and never-before-outside Red Sox hats.

Character (or lack thereof) is Most Evident When Things Go Bad

Howard weighs in again, in another guest blog:

Regardless of who wins this election the Democratic Party, as its currently formed, is on its last legs and it's behavior ain't pretty. The country is moving in another direction while the Democratic Party and its allies in the mainstream media (MSM) cling to a life raft named Liberal. Unfortunately for the dems the life raft has serious leaks and will sink even if Kerry wins.

The average American, and the average democrat, do not want the party of McGovern/Carter/Kerry. They want leadership, not elitism, and they want character. The Democrats had the opportunity to nominate a candidate who has both, Joe Lieberman, but they blew it. Lieberman would have kept the Clinton legacy alive, improved upon it in foreign policy, and maybe saved the dems to fight another day. I personally think he would have made a good president.

So how are the liberal dems handling their demise which is being whispered about among the cocktail set in DC but kept under wraps by the MSM?

The Art of Strategery: Strategy v. Strategic Vision

Guest blog from "Howard", who articulates the case for re-electing George Bush better frankly than the candidate himself. Well worth reading. Enjoy:

Is having a strategy and having a strategic vision the same thing and does this question matter with respect to the presidential election? Bush has articulated a strategic vision with respect to the global war on terror in an inarticulate and piecemeal way but it seems to me to hold together if you are patient, listen closely, and do a little interpolating.

The challenge part of Bush's vision is that the world is awash in well funded and well armed sophisticated terrorists steeped in the most fundamental and deadly version of Islam. They want the horrific demise of the United States, Israel, and every other country and person that won't convert to Taliban-style Sharia or pay the tax. They seek at all cost the new Caliphate. If the enemy could push a button to destroy us all it would - right now. Hence Bush's emphasis on WMD's, particularly nukes, linkages among terrorist groups, states sponsoring these terrorists, and gaps in our intelligence gathering expertise.

The response side of Bush's strategic vision is made up of two parts and I think he would say could take a generation or longer to succeed.

View from Bosnia of Iraq: Too Soon to Tell

The blogsphere and smogsphere (political punditry) are besides themselves with pronouncements on Iraq: it is a quagmire, it is getting better, Bush made a mistake, Kerry will cut-and-run, etc.  A friend of ours sent us some sensible thoughts from the Balkans:      

The US election debates on foreign policy recalls the statement allegedly made by Mao Tse Tung's foreign minister, Chou En Lai, when asked about the French Revolution's outcome.  He replied, "It's too soon to tell."  Forgetting this wise, Chinese long view of history, people are making an awful lot of sweeping statements here about Iraq rather soon after it has happened.

A lot can be learned from our recent attempt at nation- and coalition-building in Bosnia where, nearly ten years after the Dayton Agreement, the international community is still heavily engaged.  It is trying to withdraw, but finding it difficult.  It is also more or less now engaged on unraveling or at least modifying one of they key tenets of Dayton: the division of the country into ethnically-based entities and cantons.  We can also perhaps learn from Kosovo, where the international community has no good way out of a bind it's in.  It intervened in a conflict as a "humanitarian intervention" and now finds itself seeking the impossible: a solution between two parties, one expecting independence and the other expecting the province to remain part of a country, that will satisfy both sides.  After five years of United Nations administration, the electricity still goes off for twelve hours a day and the natives grow increasingly restless.

Both these situations are, in the main, creations of the people who now, speaking for Kerry, criticize the Bush administration.  That's politics.  The positions are put into high contrast, whitewashing the more subtle lessons of the war.  What nobody says, this being a political year, is that there are many situations that admit of no easy answers.  Iraq is one of those. 

Whether or not the current administration planned the peace well, one cannot deny they did a good job planning the war.  They won in three weeks in a campaign of maneuver that will be studied in military academies for years to come.  The United States Marine Corps moved farther from the sea faster than it ever had in history.  There was a lot of hard fighting along the way, even in Baghdad, quelled by a lot of individual initiative and bravery.  In so doing, they removed an evil tyrant, and there is something to be said for that. 

This military campaign also raises the question:  If we can intervene in Kosovo on humanitarian grounds, a rather shaky doctrine under international law and a conflict for which we also could not get the backing of the U.N. Security Council (until afterwards), why were we not justified in doing the same in the face of a much-worse situation in Iraq?

The speed of the campaign, which was unexpected, also appears to have affected the aftermath, for it left large parts of the country untouched.  Unlike Germany and Japan after the Second World War, the military campaign did not leave the country flattened.  Unlike Bosnia, where the parties were depleted by the fighting, and unlike Kosovo, a tiny place where the losing party left, the campaign allowed a lot of combatants to shed their uniforms and slip back into society.  That they're disgruntled, angry, and belligerent is without a doubt.  That anyone, from any administration, could have anticipated all this seems more doubtful. 

As for the larger question of whether this was worth doing, perhaps that is the one we should be asking ourselves.  But the answer to this question may be the Chinese one:  it's too soon to tell.