"At this point, Bush would have to defy history to win reelection"

[montana500]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6262475/


At this point, Bush would have to defy history to win reelection, since polls show the incumbent in a dead-even race and that a majority of voters believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. Facing those bleak facts, well-known Republicans are quietly wondering whether Rove's luck has finally run out. So far, most believe he will wind up making a winner of a troublesome hand that he largely dealt himself.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

1. In addition

No President who won an electoral majority but not a popular majority ever was re-elected.

[joanne]

2. Dumbya wasnt elected the first time

and he wont be now either.

[SammyWinstonJack]

8. And that is what scares the crap out of me!

:scared: Don't get me wrong, I know Kerry will win! I am just afraid of what the slimy repugs will do to hijack the election AGAIN!

[Cha]

9. That's really Interesting!

And bush spent all his popularity after he let 9/11 happen.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

11. Actually he was very popular after 9/11

As was the U.S. He blew it with the Iraq invasion, even more so when WMDs weren't found.

[Cha]

17. I was in that supposedly "10%" that weren't

behind him..we've come a long way, baby!

[naufragus]

16. they are MORE liked going into term 2

the incumbant usually gets reelected with well over 50%. more people have grown to like them. bush has hovered at 47% for months. i dont think more people like him now than 4 years ago

[blondeatlast]

3. This paragraph should be required reading for EVERY Kerry

supporter, from the lowliest volunteer right up to Mary Beth Cahill and beyond:

Rove had to trim his hopes for realigning party politics because of the way the president handled Iraq, and because Bush made little effort on issues, such as the environment, that might have attracted more traditionally Democratic constituencies. Instead, Bush catered to conservatives on everything from support for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage to constant talk about tax cuts. The main critique of the Rove strategy, from inside and outside his party, is that the White House governed in a divisive way, when Bush could have used his popularity following the terrorist attacks to reach out to swing voters and even to African Americans.


THEY ARE VULNERABLE, THEY CAN BE EXPLOITED, THEY WILL LOSE.

[rockymountaindem]

6. Had he done those things

he may not have been a bad President. It is because he has not done any of those things that makes him such a failure (well, that and all his other screw-ups).

[kurt_cagle]

18. Bad President

> Had he done those things he may not have been a bad President. It is because he has not done any of those things that makes him such a failure (well, that and all his other screw-ups).

Listening to the debates, one of the things that most strongly occurred to me was the fact that, with a majority in both houses and a virtual carte blanche to rewrite any legislation coming out of Congress, Bush essentially has almost nothing to point to beyond the woefully underfunded No Child Left Behind Act that he has helped shepherd into law. The truth of the matter is that George Bush has effectively done nothing beyond letting other people essentially run things any way they so chose. He has taken responsibility for nothing, even though he was the one to appoint all of these people.

If Bush is, as is often claimed, a CEO president, it's one of those loathsome ones who never comes into work, never even looks at the books, just blithely gives anyone who likes like they may have an ounce of cunning carte blanche to do what they want. His defense would be the same as Ken Lay's -- "I did not realize that these things were going on". Even if true, that to me is far more damning an indictment of a leader's incompetence than if they had deliberately directed such actions themselves, because the role of a leader is both to set the direction that the others within an organization follow and to take responsibility (and fix it) when others who were hired on his watch fail in their tasks or work to the detriment of the organization.

I do not think that Bush is an evil sociopath (though I am inclined to attribute that to others close to the throne) but I do think that he is worfully incompetent in his role as president, that he is intellectually lazy, and that he is craven. The people who are backing him for a second term wish to see this continued, because it means that they can continue to raid the cookie jar with impunity. That these people effectively control the media and many of the larger corporations should not be overlooked. However, in the end, even Enron, a company that was too big to fail, failed, and when it did, people realized that it was mostly hot air. I suspect that BushCo is the same.

In the absence of 9/11, Bush would still have been a bad president, we would just not have been as painfully aware of it.

-- Kurt Cagle

[Cha]

7. I know! Why did he have to

be so damn "devisive"? It's just weird!

But, thank you kkkarl.. cause you screwed the pooch(whatever that means..lol..I read it on DU)!

[Ell09]

4. a little bit of good news

I am really hoping that the undecideds are leaning towards Kerry as has been suggested. All we need is 60% of those undecideds to pull the lever in our favor and all of a sudden we have a Kerry victory that is somewhat decisive.

Republicans rarely admit concern, so that's a reason to be optomistic that their polling isn't falling in line with Zogby's recent data.

[Aunt Anti-bush]

12. Plus, the undecideds are probably decided.

They just haven't wanted to say so. I couldn't imagine how anyone could be undecided, but then again, I can't understand why anyone would vote for *, either.

Hey, by the way, it's nice to have you with us here at DU. Welcome.

[naufragus]

14. Undecideds dont vote

IMO...if they say "i dont know" i dont think they will vote.

or out of civic pride they just go to the polls and just pick one in moment's thought.

undecided = dont care

[AntiCoup2K4]

13. Statistically, undecideds favor the challenger.

Because if the incumbent was doing a good job, they wouldn't BE undecided to begin with :)

[blondeatlast]

15. Or bother to register, either.

I still say it's Kerry by 8 percentage points.

[Cha]

5. I can answer their damn question...

Yes! Ol' rove's luck has finally run OUT and No..he will not end up a "winner of a troublesome hand that he largely dealt himself."

Fuck you very much!

[The Doctor.]

19. Rove will play the bin Laden card...

And people will fall for it just long enough to pull the lever.

The rumor of his supposed capture 11/01.

The news of an 'unconfirmed and overzealous source' 11/04.

[Cha]

20. Nah! We're gonna win...so rove can play any

desperate hand(to continue with the card game analogy) he wants..luck has deserted bush's brain.

[The Doctor.]

23. Here's to that!

:toast:

[Aunt Anti-bush]

10. Or he could just defy the rules

like he did the last time.

[shivaji]

21. Do not forget...repugs are 5-4 in SCOTUS

and thats all that is needed, since this election, like the last, will be decided in courts.

[Longhorn]

22. 9/11 as an opportunity -- how can anyone describe it as such?

"It befuddles me," said one Republican official working with the campaign. "If they had never had 9/11, you could understand being where we are, because you could say never got out from under the cloud of the disputed election. But they had an opportunity no president gets."