Maybe Bush WAS overconfident

A few weeks ago, when the President was riding high in the polls and running away with the Electoral College, I vented a little - okay, a lot - at the persistent, almost stubborn worrywart-ism of some voices on the Right who just couldn't seem to bring themselves to embrace success.

I was specifically thinking about the following graf:

"...for a lot of us, it's just too good to be true. We just know something's gonna go wrong. It has to, because it always does. Even the best, most confident right-wing pundits out there always include a bet-hedging paragraph. Because, as we're all supposed to imbibe like mother's milk, 'the race isn't over.'"

This post came to mind because of another thread running through conservative punditry in the past week: "In the end, Bush is going to win." Every pachyderm seems to be saying it - Sean Hannity, KVI local hosts Kirby Wilbur and John Carlson, Bob Tyrrell today, most of the blogosphere (particularly Hugh Hewitt - today it was, "[Kerry] will get walloped in 26 days.")

Now then, what has happened between two weeks ago and today? The first presidential debate, which in reality was a draw but which Big Media has successfully spun as a huge Kerry blowout. And while it hasn't generated anything remotely approaching a tidal surge for the Massachusetts part-time senator, he has managed to tighten the race considerably, cutting the President's four-point lead in my polling composite a week ago nearly in half and his 96 Electoral Vote lead down to 6 with the vote fraud discount factored in. It isn't a stampede, but the trends are in Kerry's direction, mostly, it appears, from his swaying a growing number of undecideds into his column, if only nominally.

This brings up something that David Hogsberg wrote at the time, and for which I blasted him:

"So, can Bush lose? Sure, and here's how...Overconfidence.

"The Bush Campaign may let up if it thinks the election is locked up, especially on terrorism. That could give Kerry an opening to focus on the Iraq 'quagmire' in the upcoming weeks. Add more bombings and deaths in Iraq - a likely occurrence - and the issue could shift to Kerry's advantage.

"Overconfidence may also cause Bush to be complacent about the debates. If he actually performs down to expectations - an idea the Bush Campaign will try to promote - and comes off as bumbling and unsure, while Kerry looks in command, Bush could suddenly find himself behind in the polls."

Sounds almost prophetic, doesn't it?

Did Team Bush relax? Was the President coasting when he got to Coral Gables a week ago and got ambushed as a result? Did his people tell him, as his debate performance seemed to indicate, that he just needed to stress a few central themes, and that he could ignore what Senator Kerry said - or the effective opposite of Ronald Reagan's problem (over-preparation) in his first debate with Walter Mondale twenty years ago? It's difficult to say.

If Dubya was starting to doze off, last week's encounter certainly seems to have awakened him, as his resounding smackdown of a speech yesterday in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania illustrated. I certainly wasn't the only one wondering where that Bush was a week ago - and expecting that same Bush to show up tomorrow night in St. Louis.

But, as the shampoo jingle goes, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." If the President had administered the paddling to Lurch that Dick Cheney did to Opie Edwards Tuesday, this race would be in garbage time, awaiting only the actual vote to make Bush's re-election official. But by being gracious instead of vicious, and letting opportunity after opportunity to puncture the pontifications of that pompous ass go by the boards, GDub threw away the stature gap that he had enjoyed all year and particularly after the GOP convention. Or, he "came off as bumbling and unsure, while Kerry looked in command." And while Bush hasn't fallen behind, the horserace is now more than close enough for vote fraud and/or another post-election legal offensive to succeed where Al Gore fell short four years ago.

Debate #1 was Bush's best chance to bury Kerry and avoid a reprise of the Florida nightmare multiplied God knows how many times. Now, even if he creams Mr. French in the remaining two encounters, it's still most likely going to be a down-to-the-wire nail-biter.

And, as much as it pains me to have to say it, that's a scenario that the President is unlikely to win.

If Mr. Hogsberg wants to give me a stiff noogie or six, he can name the place and time.