Kerry will be a good challenger

The Eagle (American U.) ^ | 1/29/04 | Michael Inganamort

[NorCoGOP]

WASHINGTON -- About a year ago, John Kerry struck me as the strongest potential challenger to President Bush. He was a Vietnam veteran, distinguished senator and levelheaded. He shared initials with another JFK and looked like a president. With Kerry, there were no surprises. He was the Democrat's Democrat, and a safe choice to be the nominee.

I consequently hoped for Kerry's political demise. Apparently, so did the media. They wrote the candidate off as a stiff board with expensive hair cuts and the resemblance of Lurch from The Addams Family. After all, John Kerry just wouldn't produce the drama, juicy details and scandalous stories the media demand. So, they looked elsewhere for a presidential candidate.

On the rebound after a tough breakup with John McCain, the media began to romance Howard Dean. And so did Republicans across the country. For different reasons, of course. The media saw Dean as a fiery outsider who would change the Democratic Party and inspire progressive activism. Republicans saw Dean as a sure loser.

I'm repeating a story you already know. By some accounts, it was the political story of 2003. While a Bush landslide was the dream of Republicans, the media cooperated by pushing the Dean campaign at lightning speed. It was a dangerous game of chicken careening toward political Armageddon in November 2004.

Sadly for some Republicans, it now looks like that date with destiny may never come to be. The media, along with Democratic voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, caught on to the Republicans' devious dreams and stopped the Dean surge in its tracks.

For the media, Dean was too successful, too strong in the polls and too close to winning the nomination. For Democrats, Dean was too dangerous. Enter John Kerry.

Two primaries later, Howard Dean, liberator of disaffected Democrats everywhere, is stuck somewhere in the middle of the pack. His train lost its steam and is now creeping toward a horribly anticlimactic stop. I'm not going to make the mistake of prematurely writing the Dean campaign's obituary. He may indeed pull this thing off. But it is undeniable that his campaign took a serious blow, broke its stride and lost its confidence.

Tragic? No. I was wrong to happily anticipate a Bush landslide over Dean. Where I went wrong was not in its probability (Dean's primal scream in Iowa reassured me of that) but on its merits. Just as Democrats binged on Howard Dean, so did Republicans like me. We salivated at the prospect of his losing 40 states. Why? Because our partisanship took precedence over our beliefs in good government.

With Dean as his opponent, Bush would be put in the situation to effectively take his conservative base for granted. After all, conservatives would never vote for Howard Dean, who campaigns on his desire to repeal all of the tax cuts. Instead, conservatives would be marginalized.

In some regards, it is good that President Bush is as much a pragmatist as an ideologue. This is an important quality of a president and I do not discount it. Yet a mission to Mars does not fit into the equation. The bloated agriculture bill, expensive Medicare plan and across-the-board spending increases all fly in the face of fiscal conservatism. They are a result of typical congressional behavior and a chief executive who has yet to use his veto power. Whatever happened to voluntary private accounts for Social Security?

When faced with a serious challenger, however, President Bush will rely heavily on his conservative base. He will no longer waste time catering to the Left in an impossible effort to win its favor. President Bush will need to convince people to vote for him, not appease them by ceding certain values. After all, the goal is not to win more votes for the sake of winning more votes. It is to win the battle of ideas, ideology and beliefs.

This is why President Bush doesn't need a landslide. He needs a tough race. He needs to stay on his toes, consolidate his base and work hard. I don't want to trip him up. I want to see him succeed when faced with a legitimate challenge. There is no doubt in my mind that President Bush is at his best when faced with a challenge.

And that is why conservatives have not lost confidence in President Bush. Eighty-six percent of Republicans vigorously support President Bush, and that number will jump 10 points by Election Day. He is a strong leader who has confidently steered America through some tough times. The president has proved his mettle through his unwavering commitment to defeat terrorism abroad and empower the tax payer at home.

I look forward to a Bush-Kerry matchup because I want President Bush to win with a mandate, not by default.

[Triple Word Score]

I hear that Kerry says that the threat from terror is greatly exaggerated and we can all relax and get back to normal.

Bush may want us to GO to Mars but it's Kerry who's already in outer space.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Kerry is the Barney Fife of the Senate.

[DTA]

This snippet from DemocracyNow should be sent to any Dim who attack W on WMD issue

AMY GOODDMAN: Senator Kerry -- quick question. You said that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons when other nations wouldn't try. What intelligence was that based on?

JOHN KERRY: I don't know what report -- I don't know what you are talking about.

AMY GOODDMAN: You said Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons.

JOHN KERRY: When did I say that? I don't recall. I don't know.

AMY GOODDMAN: You said he was developing chemical and biological weapons.

JOHN KERRY: I never said he was developing nuclear. I believe I said --

AMY GOODDMAN: You said, why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons.

JOHN KERRY: Attempting to, because he did. He did attempt to.

AMY GOODDMAN: According to intelligence, Iraq has chemical and biological weapons.

JOHN KERRY: Say it again?

AMY GOODDMAN: You said according to intelligence, Iraq has biological and chemical weapons.

JOHN KERRY: That's what we were told. Right.

AMY GOODDMAN: Is that intelligence wrong? Do you think Bush -- you made a wrong statement, then? Because Kucinich at the time was saying no credible sources were there, but you are saying --

JOHN KERRY: I'm sorry, we're going to have to do --

JEREMY SCAHILL: Amy was then told by Kerry's people to stop asking questions and the press could ask them later. But when she asked if there would be an avail after the event, press lingo for press availability, Kerry's staffers conceded that there would be none. We persisted in our questioning of Kerry on this issue.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Senator Kerry, why did you say that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction?

STAFFER: We have to get the Apollo crew in here.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Answer the question, senator Kerry. Why did you accuse Saddam of having weapons of mass destruction?

[Myrnick]

Kerry is the Barney Fife of the Senate.

How so? Please expound upon this concept.

[RebelBanker]

I do NOT want a close race. I have seen too many of those decided by the graveyard vote and other such chicanery at which the Dems seem to excel.

On another topic, I am amused that the media are trumpeting John F'ing Kerry as a moderate. IIRC, he has a more liberal voting record than Ted Kennedy.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Ketchup Boy Revised

You’re a Vet from Viet Nam,
My question is which side?
You pulled ahead in Iowa,
Hope you enjoyed the ride.
Dean is toast and three dropped out,
But you don’t have a chance.
Some one else will take the lead,
New Hampshire’s your last dance.
So sit back down and shut your yap,
The party soon is over.
Underdog you called yourself,
Please do not insult rover.

Conspiracy Guy 1/21/04

[GraniteStateConservative]

All of the recent winning presidents before Bush won a huge portion of the electoral vote. The low point was Clinton's 370 in 1992. Bush won't come close to that. He needed Dean to get to about 320. He'll be under 300 now and that's no mandate in anyone's eyes. Carter's win over Ford will probably be a bigger win than Bush's over Kerry's. Dems won't feel the slightest bit beaten. They'll still filibuster and Bush will still be antsy about appoint a SCOTUS nominee-- part of the reason none of them have retired.

[BigLittle]

He shared initials with another JFK and looked like a president

I've looked at POTUS pictures, and cannot find one he looks like at all.

How about Mr. Ed?

[LisaMalia]

Kerry is the Barney Fife of the Senate.

Puullleeeeeeesssseeee! Barney had much more integrity, guts *and* smarts!

[EggsAckley]

Very odd pic. What's he doing with his left hand?

[dc-zoo]

Looks like an attepted michael jackson crotch move.

[.cnI redruM]

I know what came to mind - "Can you FEEL my surge?"

[republicanwizard]

Not true. Bush would have won with 278 votes. Should everything go REASONABLY WELL, Bush can pick up Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Maine. That would give him 39 states. Pick off one more-California, and he would have a national landslide. It is quite possible. In none of those states I mentioned, sans California, did Bush lose by more than 5 points.

[puroresu]

We'll likely never see a GOP landslide of 1972 or 1984 proportions again. Immigration (the 1965 Immigration Act) has changed our demographics. California, the largest state, has flipped over to the Democrat side. States that were once competitive in presidential elections, such as Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, are now probable Democrat states. Plus some once safe GOP states like Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada, are now becoming competitive for the Democrats.

From 1968 to 1988, the Democrats were in horrible shape in the electoral college. They had lost the south and lost a lot of Catholic voters in the north. So except for the fluke 1976 election, when Jimmy Carter ran as a conservative and was unknown enough to win the south back for the Democrats, the GOP rode high in the electoral college. During that period, the Democrats literally had only a handful of states they could count on (New York, Minnesota, Hawaii, and some of New England), and they couldn't even count on them every time. They were competitive in a few northern industrial states. But a huge chunk of the country was pretty much a lock for the GOP.

Other than the 1976 fluke, every Democrat from 1968 through 1988 scored numbers in low-to-mid forties on election day. Even Clinton in 1992 scored only 43%, though that was enough to win thanks to Perot. But by that point, the results of the 1965 Immigration Act were coming to fruition. We'd been admitting a million third worlders per year since the early 70's, and the first waves of children born to those immigrants began to reach voting age as well.

The result has been a surge in Democrat support in presidential elections, which will continue on into the future. Clinton (1996) and Gore (2000) each scored numbers in the high forties, something no Democrat had done since 1964 except for the Carter election where he won the south.

Kerry will likely lose, but as recently as the 1980's he would have been creamed in a landslide and would have gotten about 41 to 43 percent of the popular vote, winning only a few states. But this year Kerry will probably get 47 or 48 percent of the vote and win most of the northeast, plus California, Hawaii, and a few other states (Washington, Illinois, maybe Michigan).

The days of GOP landslides are likely over, and at current immigration and birth rates, it's hard to see how the GOP will be able to win after about 2012.

In other words, just as the Democrats were starting to collapse at the presidential level, with the loss of the south and the loss of Catholic voters in the north, they planted a seed called the 1965 Immigration Act. That seed slowly blossomed, and it's now repalacing all those lost Democrat voters with new ones from foreign lands.

[b9]

What's he doing with his left hand?

funky pic...its actually foreshortened, don't you think?

[EggsAckley]

Yeah, and he was probably moving, too.

[Charles Martel]

Kerry is the Barney Fife of the Senate.

I was thinking of someone else from that neck o' the woods...

[b9]

He still looks like Howdy Doody.