Not 2000, but 1980 - with a smidgen of 1865 to follow?
Hugh Hewitt, whose steadfast prediction of a big Bush win - which looked like homerism not so long ago - is looking better and better as the poll numbers show the President slowly but steadily expanding his lead.
I posted on the topic of Big Media's stubborn "It's 2000 all over again" paradigm at length yesterday. As I said then, for me it's all about the numbers as they stand today. But what raises Hewittian inclinations is the trends of which they are a part.
I commented back in the summer about a series of anecdotal press accounts regarding undecided voters who weren't thrilled with Bush but were even less so with Kerry (sorry, no convenient links available, as that was pre-blogspot). More recently we've seen polls showing GDub doubling his share of the black vote and doubling his Jewish support, in addition to his campaign's long-publicized goal of winning 40% of the Hispanic vote. The so-called "gender gap" has disappeared, substantiating the "security mom" phenomenon, where as the Dems' gender gap - among male voters - is bigger than ever. If Bush wins 20% of the black vote, a third of the Jewish vote, 40% of Hispanics, a majority of Catholics, breaks even among women, and dominates the "NASCAR dads," how can that produce another 2000-ish "photo finish"?
There are other signs. While Dems have made massive efforts (by hook and by crook) in Florida and Ohio, Bush still holds narrow leads in both, with strong finishes in offing for the final week. Meanwhile, the President is about three points ahead of where he was in Pennsylvania the last time. Ditto Michigan, where the sodomarriage issue is proving to be an anchor around John Kerry's bolted neck. Bush leads in Iowa, leads in Wisconsin, and is passing Kerry in Minnesota - all states Gore narrowly carried the last time. Those three states equal Florida in the Electoral College, BTW.
Even in states that are still safely "blue" (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New York) Dubya is doing much better than his 2000 finish. And what is one to make of Bush suddenly edging ahead in Hawaii? Two polls have now shown this over the last few days.
If Kerry is in trouble in a state that, until 2002, had not elected a Republican governor since before statehood, and which has only gone Republican for President over that time in the Nixon and Reagan landslides, is this election really "too close to call"?
One of the pasttimes of a presidential election year is drawing parallels between the current campaign and previous elections. The "official" one for this matchup is, of course, 2000. Others have suggested 1864 (supposedly unpopular wartime president winning resounding re-election against all apparent odds), 1984 (fecklessly ultraliberal senator running openly on domestic liberalism challenges proven, tax-cutting Republican incumbent), and 1988 (pompous, dull, hectoring, feckless ultraliberal from Massachusetts challenges a Republican named Bush).
I, however, have another one to suggest: 1980.
The 1980 Carter-Reagan campaign was the first one I ever followed closely and avidly. As my conservatism grew out of what would today be called "neoconservative" foreign policy stances centered on the "Peace through Strength" Cold War paradigm, I inevitably became a staunch Reagan backer. Which made for some interesting discussions in sophomore social studies (for some reason, there were quite a few John Anderson fans in that class), but I digress.
One thing I remember well from that race was the cover of the Sunday supplement/magazine on the penultimate weekend of the campaign. It showed Carter's face and Reagan's face, facing each other, with a headline the jist of which was "Down to the wire." This was right before their one and only, well, "face-to-face" debate, in which Reagan delivered his famous "There you go again" quip that made the 39th POTUS look like the mean, small man he is to this day.
The Left, then as now, was maniacally opposed to Dutch, believing the fate of the nation and the world in mortal peril if that "numbskulled warmonger" got his hands on the nuclear button. The conventional wisdom, promulgated by Big Media, then as now, was that the Gipper and Mr. Peanut were neck-and-neck.
But they weren't neck-and-neck. Ronald Reagan ran up a popular vote margin of over eight million votes, won a PV majority in a three-way race, and swept 45 states and 489 Electoral Votes. Jimmy Carter conceded more than two hours before the polls closed on the West Coast.
I think something like this is shaping up for November 2nd.
Want some additional fodder for this theory? Let's return to my polling composite, only this time focus on the "elite four" that make up half of it (Harris, Fox, Zogby, IBD/TIPP) based upon being closest to the pin in 2000.
The Election-eve figures posted by these four surveys, weightedly averaged, projected the following result: Gore 47.9%, Bush 47.7%.
The latest numbers from those same four polls, weightedly averaged, project the following outcome: Bush 52.1%, Kerry 46.1%.
This projection is based upon the undecided vote mirroring the "decided" vote. I've read all the gibber-gabber about how four out of five "undecideds" think Bush doesn't deserve a second term. But if they think that, and still aren't committing to John Kerry - as referenced above - I think it not just possible, but likely that they simply will not vote. A "pox upon both your houses" conclusion.
Oh, and did I mention that even Kerry partisan John Zogby showed Bush up seven (50%-43%) in his daily survey yesterday? Yesterday being Saturday, which is a weekend day when Dems usually do better?
I'm sorry, keeds, but it comes back to what I said yesterday: unless the Kerryians have held back something devastating about Bush that nobody knows about (not even the President), or al Qaeda sets off one of their suitcase nukes on the Capitol Mall, or "Mr. " Zarqawi manages to behead Prime Minister Allawi on al-Jazeera, or God Himself decides to directly intervene on behalf of a man who condones child sacrifice, there is no way that John Kerry can change the dynamic of this race or the trends that are running against him. And those trends will push this election beyond the reach of his fixers and storm troopers.
But that may be a happy ending of very short shelf life; just feast your eyes upon this from the op-ed page of the British left-wing paper The Guardian:
"On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all."
Athiests "praying" to a God in which they do not believe for a result they're positive they're not going to get, and pre-emptively citing it as "proof" that there is no God. Is it humanly possible to get any more incoherent than this?
Perhaps. But it's not possible to get any more evil, any more wicked, than this:
"The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?"
Well, there it is. From bumperstickers and (way) off-broadway plays and supposedly "tongue-in-cheek" books to the British counterpart of the New York Times: "For the sake of the whole world, George W. Bush must die."
I don't want to speculate about this horrific spectre. But I don't have to speculate about the mind of any "journalist" who would actually write such a thing, or a supposedly "mainstream" publication in an allied country that would print it. And, sorry, but I don't give a shit that they've now pulled the op-ed from their website or that the author, Charlie Brooker, is trying to pull an Alec Baldwin by claiming that it was all just an "ironic joke".
Remember the Oklahoma City bombing? Remember how the Clintonoid Left in this country tried to smear conservatives with complicity in the atrocity on the grounds that their purportedly "over the top" criticism of Clinton had "created an atmosphere of hate" that nurtured Timothy McVeigh and the Nichols brothers in committing this terrorist act? With the notion of assassinating President Bush nearing the left-wing mainstream (What's that saying? "Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, thrice is a trend"), is it remotely unreasonable to expect that there will be libs in a second Bush term who will try and take their shot at it for real? Or perhaps even make common cause with al Qaeda in the endeavor?
A party and/or movement that goes into such extremist rhetorical overdrive as to openly advocate assassination has left itself with few options besides humiliating retreat or moving beyond hate speech to violent action. And the wave of vandalism, drive-by-shootings, and physical assaults against Bush supporters and campaign offices that has marred the home stretch of this campaign does less than nothing to persuade any reasonable observer that Dems will chose the former over the latter.
It comes down to this: libs are fanatically convinced that George Bush has to be removed from office. John Kerry is not going to unseat him on November 2nd. Democrats will not regain the House, ruling out impeachment.
That leaves only one option.
Abraham Lincoln is alleged to have said once that if a man wants to kill the President badly enough, nothing can stop him.
Executive protection has improved quite a bit since then. But then so has would-be assassins' means.
And the level of partisan passion today is the most destructive seen since Vietnam - and perhaps Lincoln's day itself.
"'We're Democrats, so violence is OK.', writes Powerline's John Hinderaker today of the donks' evident mindset. "That is the attitude that has swept across America, leaving our democracy more threatened than at any time since 1861."
And our President - even, or especially, after his resounding re-election.
I posted on the topic of Big Media's stubborn "It's 2000 all over again" paradigm at length yesterday. As I said then, for me it's all about the numbers as they stand today. But what raises Hewittian inclinations is the trends of which they are a part.
I commented back in the summer about a series of anecdotal press accounts regarding undecided voters who weren't thrilled with Bush but were even less so with Kerry (sorry, no convenient links available, as that was pre-blogspot). More recently we've seen polls showing GDub doubling his share of the black vote and doubling his Jewish support, in addition to his campaign's long-publicized goal of winning 40% of the Hispanic vote. The so-called "gender gap" has disappeared, substantiating the "security mom" phenomenon, where as the Dems' gender gap - among male voters - is bigger than ever. If Bush wins 20% of the black vote, a third of the Jewish vote, 40% of Hispanics, a majority of Catholics, breaks even among women, and dominates the "NASCAR dads," how can that produce another 2000-ish "photo finish"?
There are other signs. While Dems have made massive efforts (by hook and by crook) in Florida and Ohio, Bush still holds narrow leads in both, with strong finishes in offing for the final week. Meanwhile, the President is about three points ahead of where he was in Pennsylvania the last time. Ditto Michigan, where the sodomarriage issue is proving to be an anchor around John Kerry's bolted neck. Bush leads in Iowa, leads in Wisconsin, and is passing Kerry in Minnesota - all states Gore narrowly carried the last time. Those three states equal Florida in the Electoral College, BTW.
Even in states that are still safely "blue" (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New York) Dubya is doing much better than his 2000 finish. And what is one to make of Bush suddenly edging ahead in Hawaii? Two polls have now shown this over the last few days.
If Kerry is in trouble in a state that, until 2002, had not elected a Republican governor since before statehood, and which has only gone Republican for President over that time in the Nixon and Reagan landslides, is this election really "too close to call"?
One of the pasttimes of a presidential election year is drawing parallels between the current campaign and previous elections. The "official" one for this matchup is, of course, 2000. Others have suggested 1864 (supposedly unpopular wartime president winning resounding re-election against all apparent odds), 1984 (fecklessly ultraliberal senator running openly on domestic liberalism challenges proven, tax-cutting Republican incumbent), and 1988 (pompous, dull, hectoring, feckless ultraliberal from Massachusetts challenges a Republican named Bush).
I, however, have another one to suggest: 1980.
The 1980 Carter-Reagan campaign was the first one I ever followed closely and avidly. As my conservatism grew out of what would today be called "neoconservative" foreign policy stances centered on the "Peace through Strength" Cold War paradigm, I inevitably became a staunch Reagan backer. Which made for some interesting discussions in sophomore social studies (for some reason, there were quite a few John Anderson fans in that class), but I digress.
One thing I remember well from that race was the cover of the Sunday supplement/magazine on the penultimate weekend of the campaign. It showed Carter's face and Reagan's face, facing each other, with a headline the jist of which was "Down to the wire." This was right before their one and only, well, "face-to-face" debate, in which Reagan delivered his famous "There you go again" quip that made the 39th POTUS look like the mean, small man he is to this day.
The Left, then as now, was maniacally opposed to Dutch, believing the fate of the nation and the world in mortal peril if that "numbskulled warmonger" got his hands on the nuclear button. The conventional wisdom, promulgated by Big Media, then as now, was that the Gipper and Mr. Peanut were neck-and-neck.
But they weren't neck-and-neck. Ronald Reagan ran up a popular vote margin of over eight million votes, won a PV majority in a three-way race, and swept 45 states and 489 Electoral Votes. Jimmy Carter conceded more than two hours before the polls closed on the West Coast.
I think something like this is shaping up for November 2nd.
Want some additional fodder for this theory? Let's return to my polling composite, only this time focus on the "elite four" that make up half of it (Harris, Fox, Zogby, IBD/TIPP) based upon being closest to the pin in 2000.
The Election-eve figures posted by these four surveys, weightedly averaged, projected the following result: Gore 47.9%, Bush 47.7%.
The latest numbers from those same four polls, weightedly averaged, project the following outcome: Bush 52.1%, Kerry 46.1%.
This projection is based upon the undecided vote mirroring the "decided" vote. I've read all the gibber-gabber about how four out of five "undecideds" think Bush doesn't deserve a second term. But if they think that, and still aren't committing to John Kerry - as referenced above - I think it not just possible, but likely that they simply will not vote. A "pox upon both your houses" conclusion.
Oh, and did I mention that even Kerry partisan John Zogby showed Bush up seven (50%-43%) in his daily survey yesterday? Yesterday being Saturday, which is a weekend day when Dems usually do better?
I'm sorry, keeds, but it comes back to what I said yesterday: unless the Kerryians have held back something devastating about Bush that nobody knows about (not even the President), or al Qaeda sets off one of their suitcase nukes on the Capitol Mall, or "Mr. " Zarqawi manages to behead Prime Minister Allawi on al-Jazeera, or God Himself decides to directly intervene on behalf of a man who condones child sacrifice, there is no way that John Kerry can change the dynamic of this race or the trends that are running against him. And those trends will push this election beyond the reach of his fixers and storm troopers.
But that may be a happy ending of very short shelf life; just feast your eyes upon this from the op-ed page of the British left-wing paper The Guardian:
"On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all."
Athiests "praying" to a God in which they do not believe for a result they're positive they're not going to get, and pre-emptively citing it as "proof" that there is no God. Is it humanly possible to get any more incoherent than this?
Perhaps. But it's not possible to get any more evil, any more wicked, than this:
"The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?"
Well, there it is. From bumperstickers and (way) off-broadway plays and supposedly "tongue-in-cheek" books to the British counterpart of the New York Times: "For the sake of the whole world, George W. Bush must die."
I don't want to speculate about this horrific spectre. But I don't have to speculate about the mind of any "journalist" who would actually write such a thing, or a supposedly "mainstream" publication in an allied country that would print it. And, sorry, but I don't give a shit that they've now pulled the op-ed from their website or that the author, Charlie Brooker, is trying to pull an Alec Baldwin by claiming that it was all just an "ironic joke".
Remember the Oklahoma City bombing? Remember how the Clintonoid Left in this country tried to smear conservatives with complicity in the atrocity on the grounds that their purportedly "over the top" criticism of Clinton had "created an atmosphere of hate" that nurtured Timothy McVeigh and the Nichols brothers in committing this terrorist act? With the notion of assassinating President Bush nearing the left-wing mainstream (What's that saying? "Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, thrice is a trend"), is it remotely unreasonable to expect that there will be libs in a second Bush term who will try and take their shot at it for real? Or perhaps even make common cause with al Qaeda in the endeavor?
A party and/or movement that goes into such extremist rhetorical overdrive as to openly advocate assassination has left itself with few options besides humiliating retreat or moving beyond hate speech to violent action. And the wave of vandalism, drive-by-shootings, and physical assaults against Bush supporters and campaign offices that has marred the home stretch of this campaign does less than nothing to persuade any reasonable observer that Dems will chose the former over the latter.
It comes down to this: libs are fanatically convinced that George Bush has to be removed from office. John Kerry is not going to unseat him on November 2nd. Democrats will not regain the House, ruling out impeachment.
That leaves only one option.
Abraham Lincoln is alleged to have said once that if a man wants to kill the President badly enough, nothing can stop him.
Executive protection has improved quite a bit since then. But then so has would-be assassins' means.
And the level of partisan passion today is the most destructive seen since Vietnam - and perhaps Lincoln's day itself.
"'We're Democrats, so violence is OK.', writes Powerline's John Hinderaker today of the donks' evident mindset. "That is the attitude that has swept across America, leaving our democracy more threatened than at any time since 1861."
And our President - even, or especially, after his resounding re-election.
posted by JASmius at 5:59 PM
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