| WHY BUSH WON THE ELECTION Many of you have requested an analysis of the upcoming Presidential election. I have, up until now, refrained from sharing an analysis for several reasons. First, I have been consumed by the Middle East for the past month (a future Rant). And second, I have nothing interesting to say. However, I feel compelled to say something, because that's just the kind of guy I am. Because I have nothing coherent or original to say, I am going to give you a series of random thoughts of differing quality to explain why George Bush has won the election. Writing on October 31, I take it as a given that Bush has won. Watching the Gore camp begging Nader voters to vote for Gore is not only rather pathetic, but conclusive proof that Gore is done. His campaign is vintage Bush 92 and Dole 96 -- he has no supporters and no direction. There will be people who vote for him because there are people who believe anybody to the right of Joe Lieberman is the anti-Christ, but there is no emotional connection to Gore. He is left to argue that a parade of horribles will occur if Bush wins. Not very inspiring. Therefore, I am going to go out on a limb and prematurely explain why Bush won. 1. 1960 v. 1988 This election, like 1960, 1968, and 1988, involves the sitting Vice-President as a candidate. For a variety of reasons, Vice-Presidents do not make good candidates. Most significantly, they haven't done anything productive as Vice-President and have been in the shadow of the President. Voters want their President to be a leader, while the standard image of the Vice-President is a man sitting around waiting for a phone call to be told to go to a funeral. Certainly, Vice Presidents come into elections with many strengths, such as "experience" and name recognition. But the fact is that Vice Presidents lost very close elections in 1960 and 1968, while winning handily in 1988. For analysis purposes, the question from the beginning of this campaign is whether 2000 would resemble 1960 or 1988. In both, voters were required to choose after the successful conclusion of a two-term President (Eisenhower and Reagan). Republicans hoped 1960 would repeat, while Democrats looked to 1988. In fact, the Gore campaign has been explicit that they were studying the 1988 campaign for guidance. 1960 was a non-ideological campaign -- I defy anybody on this list to identify what issues seriously divided Kennedy (a moderate-Democrat) and Nixon (a moderate-Republican). In fact, Kennedy attacked Nixon from the right on foreign policy (e.g. missile gap). Kennedy's pitch to the country was one of tone -- he was young and Eisenhower was old and he would bring a new energy to the country. Kennedy's main problem was that he was viewed as a lightweight and inexperienced. Comparatively, 1988 was made by the Republicans into an ideological campaign. Dukakis was a "card-carrying member of the ACLU" who was against the Pledge of Allegiance and soft on crime. Dukakis' campaign strategy was to emphasize his managerial skills and ask voters who was more "competent." But in the end, Bush convinced voters Dukakis was too liberal and Bush was a conservative in the Reagan mold. It is now clear that we have rerun 1960 instead of 1988: i. The present campaign has seen an incredible amount of "me-tooism." As anybody who sat through the 2nd Debate will remember (the one with "Nice Al"), the candidates spent 90 minutes saying they agreed with each other. This is not to say there are not differences between the candidates. But Gore, unlike Bush Sr. in 1988, has been unable to tag his opponent as out of the mainstream. Therefore, this had been a non-ideological campaign (1960) instead of an ideological campaign (1988). ii. The main attack on Bush Jr. from the Gore camp and its followers in the press is that Dubya is inexperienced and a lightweight. It didn't work in 1960. Bush Sr. never bothered attacking Dukakis for inexperience -- he focused on labeling Dukakis as a "LIBERAL.." iii. Bush, like Kennedy but unlike Dukakis, has not spent much time bashing the previous eight years -- he wants to "move on" and change the tone and give a new energy. iv. Bush is personally more likable than Gore, just as Kennedy was more likable than Nixon and Bush Sr. was more likable than Dukakis. Therefore, to the extent Gore attempted to rerun 1988, while Bush hoped to run 1960, Bush was successful while Gore was not. 2. Personal Popularity. Everybody seems to agree that they would rather drink a beer with George Bush than Al Gore. I don't think this can be overrated as a significant factor in the election. In the television age, people want to feel comfortable with and like their President. For instance, after Dukakis wore the tank helmet for his tank ride, a large segment of the population just could not take him seriously as a President. The fact is that Al Gore is wierd. Everything from his mannerisms, his continual personal recreation, his philosophical musings in the New Yorker and other interviews, his obsession with apocolyptic environmentalism, etc., is just wierd, His continual "exagerrations" are wierd because (a) they are so unnecessary, and (b) they are not about policy, but about him and an imagined personal history. It is not impossible that Gore is actually an alien from another planet (not that there is anything wrong with that). Bush may be no Gore, or Clinton, or Dukakis, or Jimmy Carter when it comes to masterminding the details of policy, but he is not wierd. Republicans have had good success in the 20th Century nominating candidates who were viewed as likable but limited upstairs (Harding, Eisenhower, Reagan). Because Democrats are the party of policy (you can imagine Clinton and Gore sitting around dicussing the minutiae of the Norwood-Dingell bill in preparation for their recent crotch shots in Esquire and Rolling Stone magazines), they think voters value such obsession in their Presidents. There is absolutely no evidence for this. Voters want likable leaders who are optimists. 3. Joe Lieberman and Bill Clinton I predicted 18 months ago that impeachment would not hurt Republicans and would not help Democrats. Bush has played the issue great -- he wants to "move on" from the partisan fights of the past years, but promises to bring dignity back to the White House. This has played great. For instance, on Letterman last week, Bush did a Top 10 of things he will be doing to the White House when he moves in. No. 2 was "give Oval Office a big scrubbing." It got a big, big laugh. (By the way, except for his disastrous appearance on Letterman early this year, Bush has been great on the talk shows. In fact, his move in the polls started after his Oprah Winfrey appearance). Gore made a strategic decision to simply ignore Clinton in the campaign. "I AM MY OWN MAN." In part, this was necessary because Gore was the Vice-President and he needed to get out of Clinton's shadow. But it seems clear that, while Clinton is popular with the 35-40% of voters who would vote for the Socialist candidate before they would vote for Bush, the swing voters in the Mid-West who are going to decide this election do not like Clinton. Therefore, in order to put the Clinton issue to rest, Gore made his biggest mistake in the election. He chose Joe Lieberman. Lieberman was a very popular choice at the time, but I thought the choice was an act of desperation and wrong, wrong, wrong. I think I have been proven right. Lieberman is from Connecticut. The last thing in the world Gore needed to do to win this election was to solidify his support in New York and the Northeast. I think the polling data will make clear that Lieberman did not help Gore win one single State that Gore would not have won no matter who the VP candidate was. Gore would have been better off if he chose somebody from the Mid-West (Dick Gephardt?), somebody who could have gotten him at least one State. But he couldn't do it -- he had to get Clinton off his back. The one caveat is Florida -- if Lieberman helps in Florida, and Florida throws the election to Gore, then the choice was genius. But the notion that Florida is going to decide this election is preposterous. If Gore wins Florida, he is going to win Pennsylvania and Michigan and have a real good night. In that case, Lieberman will not have made the difference. You heard it here -- Gore panicked, chose Lieberman, and will probably lose the election because he didn't win Missouri. 4. John McCain v. Bill Bradley Ultimately, the main reason Bush will win is because the intensity and depth of Republican support for Bush is more intense than the intensity and depth of Democratic support for Gore. In retrospect, and unexpectedly, Bush was greatly helped by the McCain candidacy. Bush originally expected to run on his "compassionate conservatism" theme against Steve Forbes and Pat Buchanan. Bush's theory was to stakeout his claim to being a mainstream-moderate Republican against the more pure-extreme versions of Forbes and Buchanan. Bush, quite reasonably, was looking ahead to the general election. However, that is not what happened. Instead, Bush's main competition was McCain. McCain's politics are indecipherable -- the success of his campaign was McCain himself. In response, Bush made a strategic decision that did not have to be made -- instead of competing for McCain's voters, he moved sharply to the Right in the primaries and attacked McCain from the Right. This played very well, because the Republican base saw the McCain candidacy, and its explicit plea for non-Republicans to vote in the Republican primaries, as being illegitimate. As a result, many Republicans who would have been half-heartedly supporting Bush the COMPASSIONATE-conservative became true believers in Bush the compassionate-CONSERVATIVE. By the time Bush got to the convention, the Republican base was solid. This then permitted Bush to move back to the center during the convention and general election, because the base was emotionally committed and did not have to be appeased. Comparatively, Gore's primary fight with Bradley did not help Gore at all in inspiring the Democratic base. Since Bradley attacked Gore from the Left (with certain irrelevant exceptions), Gore did not have the opportunity that Bush did to unify the true believers. Gore's campaign against Bradley was very agressive, if not vitriolic, and only had the effect of alienating Bradley's supporters. As a result, by the time Gore got to his convention, he was ten or more points behind Bush, because the party was not united behind him. Gore was forced to give a very populist, divisive speech, which had the effect of solidifying much of the Democratic base that was rather depressed with his candidacy, but locked Gore into a liberal persona. Gore's campaign since the convention has been Harry Truman class warfare, instead of Bill Clinton middle-class prosperity, thereby allowing Bush to claim the political center. Just plain dumb. 5. Ralph Nader v. Pat Buchanan In 1992 and 1996, Ross Perot was a significant factor in the Presidential elections. (He got 19% of the vote in 1992. Just think about that.) While it is totally speculative to imagine the results in 92 and 96 if Perot hadn't run, it is a fact that Bill Clinton never reached 50% of the vote in 92 or 96. The main problem Perot created for Republicans was that he created an outlet for anti-government emotion. Because Democrats are the party of government, Republicans depend on the votes of people who care little about Republican policies, but are simply mad at the government for whatever reasons. Perot siphoned off a large chunk of that vote, which made the campaigns of Bush in 92 and Dole in 96 problematic. Republicans thought they were going to face this problem again with Buchanan. However, Buchanan's campaign has disappeared without a trace for a variety of reasons, such as Bush's move to the Right and the foibles of the Reform Party. The bottom line is that Bush does not have to fight for the anti-government vote. Comparatively, Democrats have their own Perot problem in Nader. Because Gore does not inspire Democrats on either a personal or political level, the true-believers are having Nader dreams. They love Nader and want to vote for him after eight years of Clinton's moderate pro-business policies. Gore, therefore, is having to spend time trying to keep the far-left of the Democratic base on-board. He might be successful, he might not. But the very fact he had to deal with the issue is distracting and frustrating, as Republicans found out in 92 and 96. 6. The Surplus Since the conventions, I have been saying this election will be decided in great part by what voters want to do with the surplus. At the basest policy level as filtered to the know-nothings who might vote and decide the election, the issue breaks down as follows: a. Bush wants to give the surplus back in tax cuts to those who pay taxes, while Gore wants to spend the money for the benefit of those who don't pay taxes. b. On a slightly more sophisticated level, Bush wants to use the surplus to cut taxes and reform social security, while Gore wants to give everybody free drugs and pay down the debt. Gore, like all class-warfare Democrats, believes that because there are more people who will receive a benefit under his plan as compared to the Bush plan, it is a slam dunk. This is a very unsophisticated view of the American voter. I believe Bush has won this debate, because, at some gut level, the American voter knows that if Bush wins, he will get a tax cut, but if Gore wins, it is unclear what benefit he will receive. This is especially true, because it looks like the Republicans will keep the Congress and Bush has been successful in describing himself as a man who gets things accomplished. Gore is trying like hell right now to crucify Bush for tampering with social security and medicare. It has not stuck previously during the campaign and it is not going to stick now. People view Bush as a "compassionate conservative" -- they do not think he is going to throw Grandma in the streets. As long as they think that, and they think they are going to get a tax cut, Bush wins the fight over the surplus. Conclusion Earlier this year, I predicted Al Gore would win this election, because he would win California. It is likely that Al Gore is going to win California, New York and Illinois, and lose this election. Unbelievable. Thank you for listening. And don't forget to vote. DS |