Posted on 12/09/2004 10:14:22 PM PST by RussP
I would like to make a point about the election that I think has been missed by all the pundits.
Why was it as close as it was? The 9/11 attacks have been widely cited as helping Bush. They certainly did give him an opportunity to prove his leadership, but they also hurt him in another very important respect that nobody seems to realize. They sucker-punched the U.S. economy just as we were trying to come out of a recession.
The economy is still a very important factor in Presidential elections whether we realize it or not. Had the 9/11 attacks not ocurred, the economy would have been *much* stronger by election time, and Bush would have won by a larger margin -- perhaps *much* larger. Unless I missed it, nobody else seems to recognize that fact.
That's good news for Republicans. Barring another major terrorist attack, the U.S. economy should be much stronger by 2008, and the Republicans should roll -- assuming they get a decent Presidential candidate, of course.
On the flip side, we're darn fortunate Kerry didn't win. Like Clinton, he would have inherited a recovering economy and -- with Republicans in control of Congress -- probably would not have been able to screw it up by 2008 no matter how hard he tried. Hence, he probably would have won a second term too.
In any case, I think the devastating effect of 9/11 on the economy has been overlooked as a factor in the election.
Along with that, it has been estimates that the Main Stream Media gave Kerry as much as 15 points. Had they not been so one sided it would have been (even With 9/11) a 50 state Land slide.
Most observers about this time last year thought there was no contest, and the Democrats were wasteing their time.
But the MSM loves a horse race, and would paint the appearance of a tie game if The Pope was running against Hitler. (For those of you in the Democratic Party, let me put it in Simple termse: They'd be strongly pulling for Hitler).
This is really dangerous. The press almost elected a traitor and a clown. They almost suceeded.
I remember Rush and Sean brought up this fact many times a few years ago when the libs were whining about how tax cuts didn't help the economy. What the attacks did was slow the progression of the cuts as you said and it would've helped had they not have happened?
However, we wouldn't have gone to war with Afghanistan? The country would still be buried in the haze of the mainstream media. Remember all of this discrediting of Rather came in regards to all this war opposition while comparing Kerry and Bush. If it weren't for dragging out those fake memos, we wouldn't enjoy the respect we have today.
Also true words.
IMO, if sufficient WMD would have been found in Iraq, it would have been a Reagan style landslide for the President.
Like you mentioned, the tepid economy was one of Bush's big liabilities and made the election closer than it should have been. Another was people's attitudes towards the war. And there were a litany of others--the high gas prices, the MSM giving Kerry the most favorable coverage for a democrat since Carter, the flood of money the 527's had, an extraordinarily united anti-Bush democrat party, Bush's disappointing 1st debate performance, the draft lie, etc. With all this it's a bit of a miracle that Bush was the last man standing, and I really think that if it wasn't for the better campaign the gop ran, his personal qualities (both of which translated to high turnout on our side as well as getting some of the swingers and cutting into some traditionally dem voters) and the fact that Kerry was an unappealing, crap candidate, we would have lost.
Kay Report
Phony Bush AWOL story
Richard's Clark phony testimony and 60 Minutes
Bob Woodward's lousy book and 60 Minutes
9/11 Hearings - Grilling of Rice, and the 24/7 appearances by the Jersey Girls
Overblown Abu Gharib "scandal."
Phony missing ammunition in Iraq story
Incessant negative media coverage of Iraq
"Shock and Awe" Bush bashing
Hardly any negative stories about John Kerry.
Prepare for much worse from the liberal media when Hillary runs in '08.
Thank you for your oh so scientific analysis.
Exactly. People are surfing the net on their wireless phones and XM Radio just came out with a portable hand held version.
I agree that those were all factors. However, they are more or less constants from election to election, whereas the economy is the big variable. That was my point.
Sure, the liberal media is losing its influence, but that is a long, slow process.
The press knew what they were getting in John Kerry. Perhaps they figured he would be beholden to them since they could always out him as a fraud, a traitor, and a war criminal.
The MSM also did its best to paint a gloomy picture of the economy, I believe, in spite of the fact that much of the news about it was really quite good. I'm not thrilled to read this morning, though, that OPEC is planning to raise oil prices.
That is the thing it is becoming a very fast process. The liberals are way out on a limb (Gay Marriage, Out of control Courts etc.) and working very hard to cut it off. Dan Rather was the coffin nail in the MSM. They just don't know it yet.
I thought Woodward's book actually portrayed Bush in a pretty positive light, overall. It showed him questioning the CIA's conclusions about the presence of WMD, for example. The White House even advertised the book on their web site, IIRC. Of course, the media took the most negative parts of the book and ignored all the rest.
It is coming to light that pro-life, pro-family voters voted for Kerry because they felt so strongly that the Bush Administration was lied to in the run-up to the Iraq war.
GWB's natural constituency voted for the opposition to register disapproval of the coterie of secular/atheist neocons----- dubbed the Taliban of Secularism -----embedded in the Pentagon.
Conservative voters considered their Kerry votes to be singularly principled in that they voted against the self-serving neocons' rank humanism and atheism.
This underscores the fact that Mr Bush's socko 2004 victory would have been even greater had it not been for the humanist/atheist neocons’ treacherous behavior: burdening President Bush with phony intel.
In retrospect, we can only ponder how huge the Bush 2004 win would have been if the agenda-driven neocons hadn't sandbagged Mr Bush.
I think it was as close as it was because of the get out the vote effort by the demokkkrats. They got out all the dead demos, all the non existant AND the demos who are not even human, dogs and cats and such.
Didn't hear about Democrats' Knock and Drag much this year but I have no doubt that they implemented it again as they have for the past decade.
Ohio and Pennsylvania Republicans both had added help (not monitored in phone polls) from Amish voters.
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