A landslide for Kerry. But can he now unseat Bush?

[T_i_B]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=497650

If the human race as a whole, rather than 50 states plus the District of Colombia, could cast a ballot this coming November, John Kerry would surely win the presidency by a landslide.

Unfortunately for President Bush-haters around the world, only the 200 million United States citizens of voting age will have that right - and the outcome is anything but sure.

This year, the conflicts are inextricably entangled. If the US transfers power successfully to an interim Iraqi government and the violence subsides, then the debate about Mr Kerry's valour in Vietnam and Mr Bush's spell in the Texas National Guard will become irrelevant.

But if American soldiers continue to die and White House talk about installing democracy in the Middle East is exposed as cynical nonsense, then the disparity between Bush the launcher of wars and Bush the man who declined to serve in a war will be a constant subtext. The assumption is that 2004, like 2000, will be another desperately close affair. Others believe however it will not be so tight. Incumbents, their school of thought argues, usually win or lose by landslides.

[mrfrapp]

1. Letters Page

Did you read the letters page in today's (Friday) Independent? Here's a response to the piece from a poorly disguised freeper:

"Sir: Rupert Cornwell is absolutely right. I'm sure that if Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and Yasser Arafat could vote in the US election they would vote for Senator Kerry.

John Davies
Pitssburgh,
Pennsylvania, USA"


Amusingly, the very next letter is also (seemingly) in response to the Cornwell piece:

"Sir: How sadly uninformed is the human race!

Alice Crawford
Loomis, California, USA"


Assuming this was intentional, I'm forced to admire the editor's sense of comical timing.