niggle

The Moron-American vote is too large not to be pandered too, that's the problem.

Malachi151

The way that this works is obvious.

#1 Name recognition.

Reagan was a career actor and had name recognition, so did Kennedy, and so does Bush.

#2 Simply ignore everything and act confident and forge ahead with your plans. Never show weakness.

#3 Deny every allegation of wrong doing against you.

#4 Use patriotism and religion to your advantage.

#5 Act insulted by anything that questions your character and immediately dismiss it.

#6 Always smile.

#7 Never directly attack your opponents, instead let other members of your cabinet and your paid for buddies in the media to do that.

That's how its done, and the fact that it works really has nothing at all to do with policy substance. That's how Hitler and Mussolini did it, its how Reagan, and Bush have done it, and really its how Clinton did it too.

Being a good leader and being a good policy maker are two different things, and all a president has to do is mbe a good leader. As I said, Hitler and Stalin and Napoleon were good leaders. Being able to lead says nothing about where you are leading people too. You can be a good leader leading people straight to "hell". And they will follow.

Rusting Car Bumper

Dean's problem is worse than that. Big Business parts of the Democratic party think he is unelectable.

DC

Danya

I honestly don't think Bush really ever had that teflon coating that the others you mentioned had. He's only floating by so easily because of a compliant media and a psychologically damaged nation after 9/11 which he has milked almost dry and people will eventually tire of. They need and want to trust him right now because he's all they've got.

Even when his satisfaction ratings were at their highest levels half of America said they'd vote for an unspecified Democrat. That tells me they can't be all that satisfied if they would choose brand x before they even knew what it was. American's may simply be sticking by their one and only leader during each crisis from 9/11 to the war in Afghanistan to the war in Iraq...and I think they are getting sick of crisis and won't wish to elect more with four more years of neocons who apparently crave it.

In other words his satisfaction numbers may just be reflecting America's coping mechanism to so much stress. If so there is a good possiblity they will support him now and jump at the chance to dump him for someone else as soon as they get the chance.

And the media has made it difficult to tell if his popularity is artificial or has any substance anyway being that they're so willing to be used as his cheerleaders. Unless the dems screw up badly (always a possibility) I really believe they can win this thing.

Is this wishful thinking or a possiblity?

Bill

There is no doubt that this is Bush's strategy. However, there is no certainty that this strategy will work.

In Bush's favor is the fact that the federal election laws allow Bush to spend his huge war chest (some say he will spend over $200 million, in spite of the fact that he has no credible opponant) up until the time of the Republican convention. And the time of the Republican convention has been delayed until early September, ostensibly to get TV time after the Olympics is over, but in actuality, it gives Bush the right to use that huge primary campaign war chest that much closer to the time of the general election, and for nearly two months after the Democrat has been forced to switch from primary money to the fixed sum that the FEC delivers to each major party candidate for the general election campaign. Given that the identity of the Democrat nominee ought to be known by some time in March, Bush will have five months of "early shots" at the Democrat side using as huge of a pile of cash as he can raise from his fat cat supporters.

On the other side is the fact that Bush will have "shot his wad" at the Democrat by Labor Day, and most people wont' begin to pay close attention to the race much before October 1. A good campaign for President ramps the media up to peak about two weeks prior to the election. You want your candidate to have "Big Mo" going into Election Day.

Also, it becomes obvious when money is being used to "buy a race." People don't like to feel that they've been "bought and sold to the highest bidder." Michael Huffington spent something like $45 million of his own money in order to run for Senator from California. He spent far more than the Democrat, and he lost badly. Having the most money and the most media exposure does not ensure that you will win. You still have to possess something that the voters want to vote for. Bush Jr. got elected because enough of the voters thought he would be better than Al Gore, and in my view, that doesn't say a lot in favor of Bush. Bush Sr. couldn't win against Clinton, even after a far more glorious win in Gulf War I, where he was able to declare a real end to the war and bring home the troops to victory parades. Everybody believes that we will still have at least 100,000 US troops stationed in Iraq come Election Day, 2004. If we find ourselves with 15+ combat deaths in October, 2004, Bush, Jr. will be "dead meat." I don't think it will be that bad, though.

It is becoming painfully obvious that the current economic conditions in the USA are shipping hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of good, high-paying jobs to other countries where labor costs are relatively lower. The economy is creating jobs, but the jobs that are being created are largely in the under $10 per hour arena where overseas replacement workers aren't an option (retail sales, food services, etc.). The middle class is so downwardly-mobile at this point that it would take a real miracle for Bush to win in 2004 if people follow traditional wisdom and "vote their pocketbooks." The key issue is whether or not the Democrat nominee will step up to the plate and present a program that will bring some of the better jobs back from overseas; or at least keep the current jobs here, with future growth kept here too. In order to do that, we need a program that will address the great wage disparity between foreign nations and the USA. This wage disparity exists largely because of the artificially-high exchange rates for the US dollar, and the great underlying reason for that is because Japan has been content to buy dollars and store them in vaults in order to keep the Yen at an artificially low exchange rate to the US dollar, which keeps Japan exporting to the USA with little fear that any US imports can actually compete well within the Japanese market.

The next President ought to make the very-painful choice to do something about this situation. The Yen-dollar exchange rate should be forced to nothing higher than 80 Yen to the US dollar. That is nowhere near what is needed in the long term, but if that can be done, then the prices of imports will go up substantially, reducing the volume of imports due to natural economic pressures, and the costs of exported goods will go down overseas, increasing exports and creating jobs. This is simply Economics 101, folks!

Any Democrat who can tell this story to the American people and convince them that they will pull off this restructuring of the American economy, they will win the election in 2004 no matter what Bush does with all of his millions of campaign attack ads. The American people aren't as dumb as they are frequently made out to be by the press and the pundits. After all, Perot got a 16% vote in 1992 with all his little pie charts and his Texas nasal twang. He had a story to tell about economics, and even as an interloper, he got a substantial percentage of the votes. If you use that same strategy as part of a Democrat Party campaign, I don't see how it can possibly lose.

== Bill