Geopolitical Intelligence Report: The U.S. Preside

[Mike AI]

I think this is pretty fair as well. Kerry is in a tough spot, but Bush can still fuck up. Interesting to see his take on terrorist actions during the election.




>
> .................................................. ...............
>
> THE GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
>
> The U.S. Presidential Election: On Its Own Terms
> September 23, 2004
>
> By George Friedman
>
> Last week, we analyzed the U.S. presidential elections in terms
> of foreign expectations, merely touching on the internal dynamics
> of the election. This week, it is time to bite the bullet and
> analyze the U.S. election as we would analyze any other -- on its
> own terms.
>
>
> From the beginning, there has been a single, overriding factor in
> the 2004 presidential campaign: It is the first election since
> 1988 in which a substantial third-party candidate is not running.
>
>
> In 1992 and 1996, Ross Perot captured a substantial number of
> votes in critical states. In terms of the popular vote, Bill
> Clinton took well below 50 percent in 1992 and just a shade above
> 50 percent in 1996. There is a great deal of debate as to how the
> votes that went to Perot would have broken if he had not been in
> the race, but it is our view that without Perot, George H.W. Bush
> likely would not only have made a much closer run of it, but
> probably would have been re-elected. Perot gave an outlet to
> voters in Republican areas who deeply distrusted Bush's
> internationalism but were equally uneasy with the Democrats' tax
> policy.
>
>
> In 2000, Ralph Nader cost Al Gore the presidency. In a race as
> close as 2000 was, it is clear that, absent Nader, Gore would
> have nailed down the handful of critical states that would have
> given him an uncontested victory.
>
>
> Certainly, we can say this much: The last three presidential
> elections might not have been determined by third parties, but
> these third parties certainly defined the dynamics of those
> elections. Now, there is no full-bore third-party candidate. What
> limits Nader's effect is that he is able to run only in a limited
> number of states. He is on some important ballots, like Florida,
> but it would take an extraordinary election -- as in 2000 -- to
> make it matter.
>
>
> The starting point of all analysis is in historical precedent,
> but in this case, that means that we have to reach back to 1984
> for an appropriate comparison. That is 20 years ago, but it was
> the last time that a sitting Republican president was challenged
> head-to-head by a Democrat. The 1984 race contains some other
> parallels also: One of the charges against both Reagan and George
> W. Bush is that they are simplistic and simple-minded, totally
> unsuited for the job -- amiable but not particularly bright. In
> each race, both have been condemned for pursuing adventurist
> foreign policies. Both cases involve Democratic challengers who
> served in the U.S. Senate and were broadly regarded as much more
> deeply versed in policy matters. Both challengers are or were
> liberals. In 1984, Reagan demolished Walter Mondale.
>
>
> In considering this, two things must be remembered. First, no
> Democrat from outside the former Confederacy has been elected
> president since John F. Kennedy in 1960 -- 44 years ago. Johnson,
> Carter and Clinton all came from the South. Humphrey, McGovern,
> Mondale and Dukakis all came from well outside the Confederacy.
> Gore was the only Southern Democrat to be defeated in a
> presidential election, and that was as close to a dead tie as you
> can get. Carter lost in his second try. So we can make the
> following statement: It is not enough to come from the South if
> you are a Democrat, but you cannot win unless you come from the
> South.
>
>
> There is a reason for this. Until 1960, the South was a solid
> bloc for the Democrats. From reconstruction onward, the Democrats
> could count on the region as their electoral base. It wasn't
> enough to win the presidency, but it was enough to put the
> presidency within reach so long as coalitions could be cobbled
> together from other parts of the country. During the 1960s,
> however, the South ceased to be automatically Democratic, given
> the split over civil rights. While the far West (excluding the
> Pacific states) became increasingly Republican, the Democrats no
> longer had a solid bloc anywhere. If the South came in Republican
> along with the West, all the GOP had to pick up were a couple of
> industrial states to win -- whereas the Democrats had to build a
> new coalition in every election.
>
>
> This was why Southern Democrats had a chance of winning. Leaving
> Johnson out of this (as there was a very different dynamic at
> play there), for 40 years, Democrats could win the presidency
> only if they at least split the South. That made the general
> election a horse race, with Republicans and Democrats equally
> scrambling in the industrial states and California. In practical
> terms, only Southern natives were able to truly split or rally
> the South. Thus, non-Southern Democratic candidates lose. The
> reverse is not true: Nixon and Reagan were not from the South.
>
>
> Second, the last president to be directly elected from the Senate
> was -- once again -- Kennedy. Nixon was the last president to
> have served in the Senate, but he had been out of the Senate for
> 16 years before moving into the Oval Office. Carter, Reagan, and
> George W. Bush had all been governors. Bush Sr. had served in the
> House of Representatives -- but again, long before becoming
> president. Goldwater, Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Dole and Gore
> all were rooted in the Senate. Ford had been House minority
> leader before becoming vice president, and Michael Dukakis was a
> governor.
>
>
> There is actually a reason why senators lose elections. More than
> others, they are in the business of taking policy positions. They
> are constantly voting on bills, constantly making speeches that
> are remembered, and they are somewhat less sensitive to public
> opinion than Congressmen because they have six years between
> elections rather than two. They figure, properly, that the things
> they say and do in the first four years of their terms won't
> affect them much in their last two years. That is true, but it is
> also the case that when they run for president, all of these
> votes, statements and positions that they themselves might have
> forgotten and which might have been well-received in their own
> states, suddenly are dragged out of the deep by teams of
> sophisticated analysts looking for trouble.
>
>
> Governors have this problem to a much lesser degree. For one
> thing, they tend to deal with much more parochial matters.
> Whether a highway should be built in a certain place is, of
> course, a burning issue in that state and in that time, but it
> rarely has national significance. Moreover -- and this is an
> interesting fact -- speeches by governors are not recorded with
> the precision that those of senators are, nor do governors
> actually vote on issues. A huge amount of deniability is built
> into the jobs of governors because the history-making machinery
> of the U.S. Senate isn't there. People sort of remember what a
> Clinton or Bush said or did on some subject or another, but
> everyone knows what a Gore or Dole said or did -- and if they
> don't, they can look it up. Somewhere in that record, something
> will alienate some important constituency. All senators take
> positions and shift them over time. It is an easy business to
> make them appear inconsistent or unprincipled.
>
>
> This year, the Democrats are running a non-Southern senator for
> president. That means that they are starting the campaign with
> two strikes against them. The Democrats are going to have a much
> tougher time building a coalition in the South, which means that
> they must focus heavily on the industrial Midwest and North, as
> well as on California. This can be done, but it hasn't been done
> by a Northerner in 44 years. Second, the Democrats have Kerry's
> highly recorded political career in front of them, with thousands
> of votes and statements. For the Republicans, casting him as
> indecisive will be a breeze, leaving Kerry constantly on the
> defensive.
>
>
> The specific dynamic of the 2004 race also poses serious
> challenges for Kerry. In looking at the polls, it would appear
> that about 43 percent of likely voters have made the decision to
> vote for Bush regardless of the course of the campaign, while
> about 41 percent will vote for Kerry. That is, in effect, a tie,
> and actually shows a larger Democratic base than in previous
> elections. That means that the election battle is for 16 percent
> of the voters. Of that 16 percent, about 6 percent are undecided
> by reason of stupidity. How they vote or whether they vote will
> depend on almost random events.
>
>
> About 10 percent of the electorate, therefore, are the
> intelligent undecideds. They are actively considering the
> options. This 10 percent seem to be heavily focused on the war
> against militant Islamists in general and on Iraq in particular.
> They are far from anti-war voters, in the sense that they have
> not bought into Michael Moore's view of the war as a vast right-
> wing conspiracy, nor are they at all impressed with Bush's
> execution of the war. Their view appears to be -- and it is
> tricky and not altogether fair to sum up such a diverse and
> fragmented group -- that the war against terrorism was forced on
> the United States, that the war in Iraq was probably a mistake,
> but that withdrawal is not an option. They are looking for
> someone who can do better than Bush in fighting and winning the
> war.
>
>
> This should make it Kerry's presidency in a walk. In fact, he
> thought it would, which is why he led with his military record.
> Bush struck back at Kerry's center of gravity, attacking what
> would have appeared to be an unassailable military record. With
> his own military record known and discounted, Bush had nothing
> much to lose. He not only tarnished Kerry's record, but forced
> him onto the defensive when Kerry needed to be taking the
> offensive instead.
>
>
> But Kerry's problems are more than simply tactical. Kerry has a
> severe problem on his left wing. Entirely apart from Nader,
> Democratic voters have the option of staying home. Many of them,
> particularly supporters of Howard Dean, have severe doubts about
> Kerry. More important, they are a single-issue constituency: They
> are anti-war. If they revolt against Kerry, he can't win.
>
>
> That means that if Kerry appeals to the intelligent centrists by
> acknowledging that the war must now be fought and offering
> himself as a superior commander-in-chief, he faces the very real
> possibility that he will bleed off support from his left. George
> W. Bush had exactly the same problem in 2000: He waged a campaign
> to take the center and did fairly well, but his campaign
> alienated the right. Several million Republican voters stayed
> home.
>
>
> Bush has an advantage over Kerry this time. His right wing is
> fragmented and can be motivated to vote on issues other than
> Iraq. Abortion, stem cell research, gay marriage -- all rank as
> higher-priority issues on the far right of the Republican Party
> than does Iraq. Moreover, these issues seem to alienate primarily
> those voters who are never going to vote for Bush anyway. The
> center is so fixated on the war that these other issues tend to
> have limited impact.
>
>
> It is understandable why Bush opened his campaign with a series
> of apparently random positions that appealed to his flank, and
> then attacked Kerry directly at the point where Kerry had crafted
> his appeal to the center. Kerry, on the other hand, is faced with
> a huge problem: His far left has become a single-issue bloc that
> is highly sensitive to his position on Iraq. The center is
> single-issue and highly sensitive to Iraq. Any move that
> satisfies one side will alienate the others.
>
>
> This is why Kerry has had such difficulty defining his Iraq
> policy. It is clear that his heart is in the center, and that he
> would like to take the centrist position. His problem is that his
> polls are telling him that his bleed-off to the left -- perhaps
> no more than 3 or 4 percentage points -- could well spell his
> defeat. That gives Bush the opening he needs: He uses Kerry's
> senatorial record to paint him as inconsistent -- the antithesis
> of the kind of leader the center is looking for -- while allowing
> Kerry's political problem to make him appear to be consistently
> wobbly.
>
>
> Given all of this, it would appear extremely unlikely that Kerry
> can defeat Bush. There is no precedent for a Democratic victory
> with these dynamics, and the internal structure of the campaign
> militates against it. Put simply, the idea that a wealthy
> Massachusetts liberal will defeat a sitting Republican president
> in time of war is a dubious proposition.
>
>
> But that is the wild card in the election. Bush is an incumbent
> president in a time of war. The public is much less sensitive to
> the war itself, according to polls, but it is highly sensitive to
> the idea of mismanagement of the war. This is what could pull the
> middle toward Kerry without threatening his flanks. If Kerry
> remains unclear on the war but centrist voters conclude that Bush
> doesn't know what he is doing or that the war is going out of
> control, Kerry can win the election.
>
>
> His problem is that he cannot force this to happen. More than in
> most cases, he must play the passive observer, benefiting from
> Bush's failure. Kerry is trapped by his left -- preventing him
> from offering war-fighting solutions -- and by the center,
> preventing him from abandoning the war altogether. He also cannot
> afford to appear to be hoping for failure in Iraq. Failure must
> come to him.
>
>
> That is certainly possible, and militant leader Abu Musab al-
> Zarqawi is certainly trying to create a situation in which Bush
> is toppled. Militants like al-Zarqawi care not one whit for
> either candidate, but they do care for the perception in the
> Islamic world that they have the ability to define American
> politics. But it is not clear to us that al-Zarqawi alone has the
> resources for a sustained campaign. He needs support from other
> factions in Iraq. Thus far, that support has not materialized --
> and that is because Bush does have a degree of control over the
> internal evolution of political relations in Iraq.
>
>
> Kerry's only hope is a massive shift in public perception of
> Bush's management of the war. There are six weeks left to go, so
> it is not impossible that the first northern Democratic senator
> since JFK is about to take office. But it isn't the likely bet.