Posted on 09/23/2004 7:18:11 PM PDT by Urbane_Guerilla
(Captain's log): Michael writes:
You've written on a couple of occasions about, as you put it, "The Bush Masterstroke". It seems to me that we've gone quite a while now without one.
I'm wondering if you see one coming, or circumstances under which such a play could be made. The obvious assumption would be that such a move would, by necessity, have to come before the election.
I've thought about that. Of course, such a masterstroke isn't always possible. Opportunities for such things don't come along every day. Also, when I wrote about that I was talking about cases where Bush eventually made some specific critical speech, or enumerated some specific critical policy, which fundamentally changed everything. I doubt anything like that is coming.
There's a more generic sense of this, however, which some refer to as "rope-a-dope" (in reference to the famous tactic used by Muhammad Ali to some of his last major boxing matches). Bush is also distinctive because of the fact that he seems to largely ignore his critics, and tends to let themselves wear themselves out and use up their ammunition. When he thinks the time is right, he then opens up on them and tends to bury them. I think something like that's coming, and it's going to be even more important than any of the previous ones.
A common lament by people who hate Bush begins with the fact that in the 2000 election, Gore got more votes total nationally than Bush did. That is not unprecedented; there have been several previous Presidential elections in which the loser got more total votes than the winner.
Their claim about the popular vote in 2000 is true. But the popular vote is irrelevant, and the claim itself is specious. We don't choose the President using the national popular vote; we choose the President via votes in the electoral college. Both the Bush and Gore campaigns tailored their campaign strategies towards prevailing in the electoral college. If our Constitutional system selected the President based on popular vote, both campaigns would have been run entirely differently, and there's no way to know who would have won.
Similarly, I think it's clear that a lot of the attention being paid right now to polls of voter preference is misguided. You see a lot of articles and blog posts which say, "If the election were held today, this is how the electoral votes would probably split."
Those poll numbers don't matter. They also don't predict anything. The election isn't being held today. It will be held in November, and the only poll which will really matter is the November election. If the election had been scheduled for now, both campaigns would have behaved much differently this spring, and the poll numbers we'd be seeing today would be much different. But the election isn't being held today, and the Republicans haven't started their campaign.
I don't know exactly when the Republican campaign will finally get serious. It doesn't seem likely they'll wait until October, so my best guess is it will be in September some time.
And I am pretty confident that when they do really get serious, the consequences for the Kerry campaign will be catastrophic. After the November election, a lot of people are going to wonder why it was that anyone ever thought that Kerry had a substantial chance of winning.
And part of the reason it's going to go so badly for Kerry is that there is very careful low-level preparation going on.
In the run up to the invasion of Iraq last year, there was broad consensus among observers (including me) that there would be one to two weeks of air preparation before ground ops began (which was still viewed as a radical change compared to the six weeks of air preparation before ground action in 1991). CENTCOM crossed everyone up when it began ground operations on the first day of active hostilities.
It turned out that CENTCOM had already done most of the important air preparation in the previous year, slowly, gradually, subtly. Some of that hit the news (e.g. a bombing attack that took out a critical fiber communications junction and cut off telecommunications between Baghdad and southern Iraq) but most of it did not.
I can see hints of that kind of careful preparation being done politically and diplomatically, which will turn out to be critical for the campaign. I think that some of Bush's international actions recently have been partially intended to undermine Kerry.
Let's make clear that I do not think that has been the only motive for the Bush administration. I do not see any case in foreign policy where I have concluded that they seriously sacrificed the nation's interests solely to gain a campaign advantage. (Domestic policy is a different matter, but I don't want to go into that.)
But there have been cases where choices have been made and policies selected in part because of their effect on the campaign.
Bush has by no means embraced the leftist position regarding international law and governance and institutions. In all cases where reliance on such structures would have been catastrophic for us, he has unambiguously rejected them. (Two examples: the Kyoto accords, and the International Criminal Court.)
But there have been a lot of cases where the cost to the national interest in trying to deal with such international institutions has been low, and quite often in such cases the Bush administration has chosen to attempt to work within those institutions. The results have uniformly been unimpressive, but that's not necessarily a bad thing for the Bush campaign.
Kerry has made a lot of nebulous pie-in-the-sky statements about involving NATO (and "traditional allies") in Iraq and in the larger "War on Terror". Recently Bush went to NATO and asked for help in Iraq, and he got rebuffed.
Bush went to NATO after the transfer of sovereignty to the new provisional Iraqi government. "Traditional Allies" in Europe (i.e. France) had previously said they would be willing to help in Iraq, but only if asked by a sovereign Iraqi government. But when both the US government and a sovereign Iraqi government did directly request NATO assistance, they (the "traditional allies") still said "Non!"
As it turns out, NATO assistance would have been useful at the time it was requested, but it wasn't really vital. The majority of NATO members are already helping out, and as the Iraqis themselves take more responsibility for their own internal security, there will be less need for foreign troops. Bush was publicly rebuffed, but that harmed NATO's reputation more than Bush's reputation.
When the Republicans finally start campaigning seriously, if Kerry continues to talk about NATO involvement, the Republicans will be able to respond by saying that Bush tried to involve NATO, and certain hostile nations within NATO blocked any NATO involvement.
There's been a lot of that kind of thing going on. What I see is the political equivalent of slow, relatively surreptitious air preparations intended to set up eventual rapid large-scale ground operations. Critical targets are being carefully targeted and addressed, slowly and carefully.
I think this may be one of the reasons the Bush administration has not kissed off the UN. Realistically, the UN is much more useful to our enemies than it is to us. It would be emotionally quite satisfying for the US to formally walk out, formally cease paying dues, and to formally give the UN five years to leave US soil. But the Bush administration has continued to deal with the UN, and continued to at least make an attempt to work within the framework of the UN. Doing so is utterly futile and permits our enemies to score short term points. But it also prepares the political ground for any debate in the campaign about the UN.
The primacy of the UN (as the only thing which exists now that looks even remotely like a "world government") is a fundamental leftist foreign policy doctrine, and another which Kerry has gingerly mentioned in his campaign.
Rather than formally breaking with the UN, the Bush administration has continued to work within it when doing so did not seriously jeopardize American interests. And the UN has not acquitted itself well. The record will pretty cleearly show just how useless the UN is, and how dreadfully irresponsible it would be for this nation to formally accept a requirement for UNSC approval for any active or aggressive foreign policy, including military intervention.
Rather than outright rejecting leftist proposals, the Bush administration has been trying to show how deeply flawed they are in practice, by trying to partially implement them when there's little risked by doing so. Rather the publicly denounce the UN and NATO in response to leftist calls for more reliance on both, the Bush administration has tried to deal with both, fully expecting failure.
Winning an election is like preparing a multicourse meal. There's skill involved, but there's also timing. You not only have to prepare all the dishes correctly, you need to make sure they are finished at just the right time. I see undercurrents of a lot of preparations which will bear fruit in the October time frame.
I think one of the most notable and important decisions made by the Bush administration was to schedule the transfer of sovereignty several months ahead of time, and to stick to that schedule. There were a lot of legitimate strategic and tactical reasons for doing that, but it will also have consequences for the US election.
By October, it's possible that everything in Iraq will have gone to hell, but I don't expect that. I also don't expect the insurgency to collapse and for Iraq to have been transformed into an idyllic and peaceful land of brotherhood and acceptance. What I do expect is that by October the interim government in Iraq will have firmed up and will largely have come to be seen as "legitimate" and will generally be doing a pretty good job in face of terrible challenges.
And that will mean that by October it will no longer be possible for leftists to portray the invasion of Iraq as "American imperialism". By then I think it will be very difficult to characterize the new Iraqi government as some kind of American puppet regime. It will no longer be possible to portray the insurgents as "patriots fighting to repel foreign invaders", since they'll be primarily fighting to overthrow the native Iraqi government and primarily fighting against and killing Iraqis. (Sure, they can try to portray the situation in those terms, but I don't think they will convince many undecided American voters.)
The US Army and Marines aren't going to leave Iraq, but by October they'll no longer be significantly involved in day-to-day patrolling. "Defensive" operations like patrols will be Iraqi; our forces for the most part will only engage in combat in large operations, such as the inevitable day when Falluja finally gets cleaned out. (I don't know if that will happen before the election, but it wouldn't surprise me.)
The Republicans are also going to benefit from other things which will likely happen over the next few months. If the Palestinians do collapse into full-scale civil war, it will help Bush more than hurt him. As Chirac's political situation in France continues to weaken, that too will help Bush. Continued revelations about UN corruption (particularly UNSCAM but not confined to that) will be helpful. The Republicans are starting to lay groundwork for making Iran an issue in the election.
(There are other possible events whose political consequences are impossible to predict: a new major terrorist attack on the US which was successful or unsuccessful or partial, a new major terrorist attack elsewhere (especially if it was in the UK), North Korea detonating a nuke, Iran detonating a nuke, a revolution in Pakistan, any of several critical world leaders either being assassinated or deposed from power, etc. Since the consequences of such events are impossible to predict and could just as easily benefit Bush as Kerry depending on circumstances, I do not factor any of these into my conclusion in this post.)
As the US economy continues to improve, and as lagging economic indicators (such as hiring) finally respond, and as international diplomacy continues to spiral into madness, and as the Republicans continue careful preparations, then come October I think the Kerry campaign is going to discover that it doesn't have any issues remaining to it which it can use to try to appeal to the American center.
The Republicans will have no such problem coming up with issues. When the Republicans finally get serious, one of the things they're going to do is to shine a strong spotlight on one of Kerry's great weaknesses, which I wrote about a couple of days ago: the fundamental anti-American values held by the left pole of the Democratic Party. During the period last year when Kerry was trying to out-Dean Dean in order to woo the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party", he said a lot of things on-camera which the Republicans are going to make damned sure come back to haunt him come October. In my previous post, I said:
And this is the millstone around John Kerry's neck: a substantial proportion of the core supporters of the Democratic party largely agree with Bancroft-Hinchey's view of the US, and Kerry dare not repudiate their beliefs. At the same time, he doesn't dare acknowledge those beliefs for fear of alienating the majority of American voters.
If he alienates those leftists, some significant percentage might decide to vote for Nader. The bigger risk is that a considerably larger percentage might decide to not vote at all if he convincingly repudiates their beliefs. Yet their beliefs are in many ways profoundly repugnant to the American center, who would be repelled if Kerry convincingly embraced those beliefs. And so he prevaricates.
The Republicans won't let him get away with that. The graphic image from the 1984 election which comes down to those of us who were adults then is "teflon". Reagan was the "Teflon candidate". (Mondale was occasionally referred to as the "Velcro candidate".) I think the graphic image we will retain from the 2004 election is the waffle.
The Republicans will comb (have already combed, in fact) his record of attributable public statements (i.e. statements Kerry cannot deny making), especially while on the campaign trail last year but also during this year's campaign and from his career in the Senate, and will try to portray Kerry's position on various issues in terms most likely to alienate the American center. The Republicans will try to portray Kerry as a politician who is willing to say anything to anyone on any issue, but who secretly is fully in sympathy with the most repulsive left wingers in the Democratic coalition.
For some particular issue they'll quote his own words and show that he's been willing to take multiple contradictory positions on that issue, with bonus points for lame explanations ("I voted for it before I voted against it"). Then they'll point to his voting record in the Senate on that issue to demonstrate that he's really, deep down, one'a them Liberals. They can, and will, try to do this on almost every major issue in the campaign.
(Foreign readers who are not intimately familiar with American politics need to know that in the US the word "Liberal" is used to refer to a political position which is essentially socialist and redistributionist. It's not dissimilar to European "Third Way Social Democracy", but it has little to do with liberalism in the classic sense. American "Liberals" are not liberal. American liberals are generally seen as "Conservative". And American "Liberals" are a distinct political minority whose fortunes have been falling since the Reagan presidency.)
The Republicans will portray Kerry as a Liberal and a liar.
Unless Kerry wants to cede control of his public image to the Republicans, he'll have to cease equivocating. He'll have to take a stand on the issues, and try to convince voters that he really does mean what he says. There are a wide variety of ways this can turn out, but all of them end up being bad for Kerry. He either drives too many voters away because they reject his sincere position, or he drives too many voters away because they decide he's lying about his position, or he drives too many voters away because they decide he is an opportunist who doesn't have any principles at all beyond personal ambition.
By October, the Bush administration will also have a significant record of achievement it can use in the campaign. Absent some unexpected and unpredictable catastrophe, the economy should be strong and growing, unemployment will have fallen considerably, and the situation in Iraq will have improved drastically in terms of political value (which, let me emphasize, will have little to do with any rational evaluation of the situation there). The overall situation will be far from perfect, and the war won't be over, but the Bush administration will be well placed to say, "We've made a great deal of progress, and we intend to make even more in our second term."
The Democrats will try to attack that record, but even if they are partially successful they will not be able to damage Bush anything like as much as the Republicans are going to damage Kerry.
Even if the Democrats weren't revealing themselves as incompetent clowns, come October they would still find themselves in deep trouble.
So what I conclude is that the next Bush "masterstroke" is going to be the November election. The Republicans and the Bush administration have been biding their time, and conserving their money. They have been carefully accumulating political ammunition and have resisted the urge to expend any of it too soon. They've laid the groundwork for a very effective campaign this autumn, and the Democrats are going to get routed.
Last October I wrote an analysis of the American party system and primary process and tried to show why it meant that the Democrats had no hope of winning the White House next November. In that post, I said:
Any political position or locus of policies which is viable within the Democratic primary process will be fatal in the general election. Any locus of policies which would be even remotely viable in the general election (such as the one held by Lieberman) is fatal within the primary process. Like Groucho Marx, who said that he wouldn't want to belong to any club which would have him, the Democrats will refuse to nominate any candidate who actually would have a chance of winning.
I still feel comfortable with the analysis in that article. As a presidential candidate, Kerry is deeply vulnerable. The Republicans are carefully preparing the groundwork for a full-scale assault on his greatest weaknesses. Once they open up active hostilities, it's actually going to end up being very much like the other Bush masterstrokes, where everything changes permanently and no one can again look at the fundamental issues the same way.
Den Beste is not perfectly accurate in his predictions, but he is so amazingly close. And he eases my mind, except in one respect. We do not know what a devastating terrorist strike will mean. JFK has been drooling for one to happen ... let us hope he does not get his wish.
I think the disgraceful treatment of Allawi by Kerry and the media was precisely in order to do this.
Bush is the toughest President ever. It is unbelievable what he has had to put up with over his life:
2 fights with Ann Richards for Gov.
Had to put up with that tacky hack Gore
Had to fight Gore in court to even get the job.
Had to fight the fed governent to get funds to start his adminstation.
Had to handle 9/11
Has the war on terror
and finally has to put up with the lowest scum of the earth in john kerry for re election.
Bush is a true man. God bless him.
John
Sdb still has his site up, but has no new material. I hope he returns and writes again at his leisure. I miss his commentaries.
This man is prescient. Events of this week fit into his scenario.
A terrorist attack in my opinion would only strengthen Bush's position but let's hope that doesn't happen. Unless the debates go terribly wrong for Bush, this election could very well be a landslide. This election for the democratic party has always been about one thing, to oust Bush. It is a bitter campaign that is supported by childish anger over having lost an election four years ago. There is no passion for Kerry the man, even from the most ardent democrats. Everyone knows who and what he is.
So the real question then becomes when election day comes and people are alone in the voting booth are they going to sell out common sense and morality and security for their families, to a man they have no faith in at all?
George Washington. He pulled this nation thru brutal years of revolution thru sheer force of personality. He kept an unpaid, volunteer army together thru a New York winter, a famine, and a smallpox epidemic; when many of the men didn't have shoes. And then went on to whip the finest army Europe could produce. He was an astonishingly tough man.
I like W. But he still has a ways to go before I rank him with our greatest president.
Yes, I got a little carried away, although Bush WOULD be a great field commander.
John
If GWB can bring peace to the middle east, neutralize north korea, reform the tax code, fix social security and reduce the size of government he will have to be ranked as one of the greatest presidents ever.
John
George Washington. He pulled this nation thru brutal years of revolution thru sheer force of personality. He kept an unpaid, volunteer army together thru a New York winter, a famine, and a smallpox epidemic; when many of the men didn't have shoes. And then went on to whip the finest army Europe could produce. He was an astonishingly tough man.
Tougher still because he managed during the critical years of the American founding to reconcile two factions which would have by themselves pulled the country to pieces--yet both were necessary components of the American Experiment. And toughest of all because he recognized that in a Republic the most powerful man must eventually be able to walk away from power.
It's impossible to overestimate the importance of our undoubtedly greatest President.
Actually, I'd argue that having John Kerry as an opponent is the ultimate gift -- a candidate with zero positives on both his resume and in his campaigning. A candidate that makes clear the differences between the two parties and one who has a strong chance of being 1980 Carter-Redux, thus dragging his party down into defeat with him. As bad as Mondale and McGovern were, they didn't give Nixon or Reagan congressional majorities. Kerry just might give Bush a sixty vote Senate.
But the rest of your list is a nice summary of the challenges he's faced.
Hmm, I think I'd also rank Lincoln as a tougher President. A civil war is more difficult than what we've faced so far in the war on terror (crossing fingers).
He was a towering, historic figure that gets short shrift in the PC environment today. Even when I was a kid, the treatment of GW was cartoonish. The dollar, I cannot tell a lie, etc. Maybe you have to immerse yourself in the history of the time as an adult to really get a feel for what an extraordinary man he was.
Agreed.
very insightful and interesting. The big picture is that GWB has been a strong president, and is so far running a great campaign.
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