Matthew Kopka, Contributor
WITH A month and a half to go Kerry has belatedly come out swinging at Bush, especially over the disastrous war in Iraq. But it's not clear those attacks will bring positive results.
The following are 10 reasons why Bush is likely to win, 10 reasons why Kerry might yet pull off an upset. The lists are hardly comprehensive. But they do hint at what are and aren't despite mainstream U.S. media obsessions the real issues in the race.
WHY BUSH IS LIKELY TO WIN
1. Vice-President Dick Cheney. Right up until the Republican convention it was speculated that Bush might drop the unpopular Cheney from his ticket. But the notion that Kerry's vice-presidential nominee, John Edwards, would give the Democratic challenger an advantage over Bush has been proved wrong. Edwards caused barely a flutter in polls and has since looked lightweight in comparison to Cheney, who invigorates the Republican hard right with his arch-conservative rhetoric, and whose acid criticisms of Kerry regularly find their mark. Expect Cheney to lose no ground for Republicans in vice-presidential debates the Democrats once eagerly anticipated.
2. American anti-intellectualism and its overlooked correlate, anti-effetism. Pundits marvel that the electorate has embraced Bush despite his wealthy roots. But Americans don't dislike the rich. They want to be rich, and like people all over the world continue to believe they will become rich when all evidence suggests otherwise. What they dislike are the professional classes that do the country's thinking Hollywood, the publishing industry, and the "liberal" media whom Kerry is seen to represent. Republicans, who have invested a great deal cultivating this hatred, stand at a marked advantage in that the faceless business people who support them arouse only vague resentment from voters. Republican criticism of Kerry's ties to movie stars and singers and early attempts to brand the Massachusetts Democrat as "the wealthiest Senator" have inoculated Bush against charges that he has worked overtime to enrich his wealthy backers.
3. It is God's will. The Christian Right, following the dictates of its pastors, preachers, priests, and ministers, will turn out in droves for Bush. Many have explained his undemocratic 2000 election loss/victory to themselves by accepting that it was divine intervention. Many believe the Bush family is a gift from God. Here we must include another kind of divine intervention what insurers call "Acts of God" since Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Ivan have enabled Bush to shower millions in reconstruction aid on the crucial electoral state of Florida which had until recently been trending Democrat.
4. The lack of a discernible alternative. The most damning charge against Kerry is that by shadowing Bush too closely on the issues he's handing the election to his opponent. It's true: triangulating Democrats still in thrall to Bill Clinton's discredited centrist Democratic National Committee seem intent on committing moderate suicide two elections running. Kerry isn't very progressive, anyway: he backed Clinton in ending welfare; voted for the disastrous North American Free Trade Agreement; for aid to the Nicaraguan Contras; for the war in Iraq. He has spent much of his candidacy signalling to Wall Street it has nothing to fear from him. There are differences between the candidates Kerry's foreign policy would be less bellicose. His health insurance plan, while failing to challenge the political power of the drug companies, would bring relief to millions. But the media absorbed with the candidates' personalities has hardly bothered to report Kerry's positions. Poll after poll indicates voters have no idea what they are. Which brings us to the next point:
5. Bush's leisure pursuits and personal style appeal more to Americans. Bush is a Yankee with an imitation Southern accent that would get most folks laughed out of any hog roast. That folks living below the Mason-Dixon line so quick to spot accept Bush consternates the liberal pundits. But such analysis ignores the facts of life in a world where the trappings of national "authenticity" are more and more synthetic: most Americans wish they could play at being a cowboy rancher like Bush does, and would sooner drive a truck and chop wood than devour world cuisine and culture (two of Kerry's trademarks) any day. They like the drama inherent in the story of Bush the reformed alcoholic, especially since he has accepted the rod of correction, moved back into the Christian fold, and is taking orders (he acknowledges) from God. They admire the way Bush does all this with a certain arrogance, and the fact (rarely noticed by critics) that a knowing wink often accompanies his trademark smirk.
6. Bush has failed as President, and few voters even know it. Bush has presided over the creation of the fewest US jobs since Depression-era President Herbert Hoover. A thousand U.S. soldiers and 10-30,000 Iraqis have died in his misbegotten war. His policies have wreaked untold damage on the environment, and proved disastrous for working people, unions, and international entente. A second term may bring war with Iran and North Korea and the end of every vestige of federal protection for children, the unemployed, and working poor. But since the mass media pays more attention to issues like number five above, most of this will not affect the election.
7. Bush has won in Iraq. This is, of course, the contrarian view of a war that has degenerated so greatly that U.S. authorities now admit Iraqi rebels control huge sections of their country. But consider: In the spectacular realm that matters to most citizens the U.S. rolled over the armies of a brutal despot in several days; the rest is less interesting, for Iraqis to sort out. Meanwhile, the U.S. prevented France and Russia from developing further hegemony over Iraqi oil. And many U.S. neoconservatives' geopolitical goals are met.
Most crucially, the six huge bases the U.S. is establishing in Iraq will enable the global gendarme to intervene instantly anywhere in the Middle East, altering events there in a manner few analysts have begun to reckon with. And wars often benefit sitting politicians. Observers have long marvelled how populations can be marshalled with a cry that they're threatened, that aggression to ensure their survival is required. Terrorism, a spectre the U.S. Government began cultivating in earnest during the Reagan years, presents the perfect phantom menace, nowhere and everywhere at once. Its continued threat generated by the government or its enemies has brought the solution long suggested by American industrialists to industrial overproduction: permanent war.
8. Bush will win the debates. It's hard for some to understand that almost all the advantages in the upcoming electoral debates belong to the candidate with less gray matter. But the debates hold any number of dangers for Kerry. If he lectures Bush on issues about which the President has little grasp he will be seen as a know-it-all. If he takes a virtuous line about U.S. moral obligations he will be perceived as acting holier-than-thou. Attempts by Kerry to talk tough or wisecrack will be seen as phony; equally phony attempts by Bush, meanwhile, will be seen as endearing. Clever quips by Kerry may sail over viewers' heads and leave them alienated. Indeed, all that Bush needs to do is pound the lectern on occasion and declare continued willingness to shed foreign blood in the public defence and it's hard to see how he can lose. Kerry's only hope: over the course of three debates Bush stumbles so often that a shamed American populace stumbles to the polls and does its civic duty, turning him from office.
9. Incumbency; the fear factor; something more sinister. The power of the presidency is awesome. In the run-up to the election Bush can sign presidential decrees targeting electoral issues; hold news conferences in which he promotes himself; appear in ceremonial garb before soldiers, schoolchildren, and aged parents, showering them all with federal largesse. But the Bush administration also proved an absolute willingness to fight dirty in Florida during the last election, and the advantages multiply when you have the government and a campaign chest twice your opponent's size to draw on.
NEOLIBERAL ECONOMIC REALITY
In the current climate, the Bush administration can already has repeatedly raised the spectre of terror. The electorate will proceed to the polls in fear, many (including a rising number of women) convinced that their safety depends on a Bush vote. Democrats, hemmed in by naive idealism and neoliberal economic reality, can't begin to match the Republicans for outright aggressiveness, especially in pursuit of U.S. global supremacy. And the U.S. electorate is far less benign charitable foreign critics give it credit for. Many know at least intuitively the Bush administration's military adventurism may benefit them economically. A certain harsh realism which includes open talk of empire (but which could be more indicative of the threat of its decline) has taken hold the last four years.
10. Osama bin Laden. Cynics believe that the Bush administration knows exactly where bin Laden is and will produce him in the run-up to the election. The simple approach to such speculation is to pose the question: why wouldn't Bush produce bin Laden if he can? Democrats have repeatedly accused Bush of 'forgetting' the perpetrators of the 9/11 disaster in his eagerness to invade Iraq. But that "forgetfulness" will redound to his benefit if he produces bin Laden at the last. If it happens expect Bush not to bother to dispel charges of manipulation, and to obtain a talismanic piece of bin Laden's beard to place with Hussein's pistol under his pillow. Expect Kerry's campaign to fold.
