Politick

Swing Vote to W in 2004?

The race looks close, and in a close race against a sitting President the undecided vote normally breaks 2:1 to the challenger, since these voters are undecided on the incumbent, leading to predictions of a Kerry win. This year we have a war President, and the undecided vote instead may swing to him. Certainly if there is a terrorist attack this close to the election, the gut reaction will be to back the Commander in Chief. A very cogent argument for this point of view by a libertarian VC blogger who is otherwise dissatisfied with W presents this case against switching to Kerry:

"As for John Kerry, he too has a record, and it is consistent:

* After returning from Vietnam, turning on his comrades in arms, and treating with the enemy
* Voting against significant weapons system during the height of the Cold War.
* Voting against the first Gulf War to rebuff Saddam’s aggression
* Voting against intelligence funding after the first WTC attack.
* Voting against funding to support our troops in Iraq
* Insulting our current allies and the prime minister of new Iraq
* Proposing a timetable, not victory conditions, for withdrawal from Iraq

This is a consistent record - of weakness and defeatism."

Who Won - The Debate Debate

I agree with the overall poll results for who won each of the the debates but the real poll is in the voting booth, and I that poll scores the debates differently.   We have to look instead at beating the point spread:

* Kerry won the first debate and equalized, got himself back in the race
* Quayle won the VP debate; it looked like he had more experience than Edwards
* Bush won the 2d debate, because Kerry could have put him away and didn't (see Slate article Strikeout!)
* Schieffer lost the 3d debate, lame questions, but it won't change the polls much, so a tie

Bush scowled during the first debate (confused by that hidden mike in his ear!) and looked fine in the 2d, but for a while looked too excited in the 3d debate.   Then he calmed down quite a bit, slowed his delivery and sounded better  (maybe another voice in his ear told him to?), so clearly Kerry was pounding him in the 3d for the middle part of it.  But he escaped the KO in part because Kerry flubbed a few questions.

External events may now decide the race.  In a close race the swing goes to Bush as it did in Australia for John Howard, to back the commander in chief during war. 

Fact is there is much less difference between these two than they try to make it seem, hence the voter indecision.  Compassionate Conservative = Shackled Liberal.  Main differences are:

* Kerry would have fought the war more like Bush 41 than Bush 43, ergo no Iraq Quagmire
* Kerry would have kept the Paygo limits (which Bush 41 created) and not reduced taxes, ergo less deficit
* Kerry would not have undermined environmental regulations under the table

These are fairly damning differences.  One can imagine a Kerry Unshackled running amok, like Clinton's first 2 years.  But the Repubs control Congress, and we have better fiscal discipline with a divided government than when one party controls.  The Repubs unfortunately have proven every bit as craven and irresponsible as the Demos when in total power.  Hence the real alternative to Bush is Kerry with a Repub Congress - a shackled liberal.   

Problem dogging Bush is his record sucks.  Problem for many conservatives is that Bush is no conservative - he is one of the most radical Presidents we have had.  The consequences of his Presidency will be with us long after he is gone.  The damage to the conservative movement may be larger than appears today.  It is one of those odd political moments like Nixon in 1968 where it might have been better for the party to lose the election.  If you are a conservative, imagine a really bad 2d term, with Demos sweeping Congress in 2006 and Hillary (unshackled) the candidate in 2008 ...

The "Global Test" and Bush's Dangerous Doctrine

The bloggers quickly picked up that Kerry's "Global Test" would become the centerpiece of Bush's post-debate counterattack and the subject of a growing debate. That Kerry's position is debatable at all is a remarkable and disturbing development in US foreign policy. As Brad de Long pointed out today, from the very beginning of the Republic we have understood the need to be able to justify our actions to the world community: Thomas Jefferson wrote in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence that " ... a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." When coupled with Bush's primary argument in the debate, that Kerry was unfit to be commander in chief if he disputed the reasons for being in Iraq, Bush is on very dangerous grounds in a Democracy. As William Bryk put it in his stirring The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush:

Theodore Roosevelt, that most virile of presidents, insisted that, "To announce that there should be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people." With that in mind, I say: George W. Bush is no conservative, and his unprincipled abandonment of conservatism under the pressure of events is no statesmanship.

Bush is asserting a dangerous doctrine, that the US can proceed without having to justify pre-emptive war. It is not a doctrine we would accept from any other global power. It is a radical departure from American leadership since World War II, where until this Bush we set up and promoted global institutions among other free nations premised on establishing principles for interactions between nations. Now we stomp on those principles, argue that we should be able to suppress debate at home, and attempt in Iraq to establish democracy at the point of a bayonet.