Ought Six
Membership Revoked
The Bush reelection campaign has been laying low during the Dem Party Convention. IMO, this is a wise strategy. When the Repub Party Convention starts, I seriously doubt that the Dems will be able to restrain themselves, and will be spewing venom big-time. The contrast in behavior will not be a favorable one in the eyes of the voters.
The Bush campaign seems to be content to let Kerry run while trying not to define himself in any meaningful way. The Repubs know that voters are seeing this, and not liking it. Kerry will have to come out firmly on all the issues eventually, and that is when the Repubs will start really hammering him on his record, his flip-flops, and his ultraliberal character. I think this will be a major facet of the Repub strategy.
The biggest issue in the campaign at this time, according to all polls, is security and the 'War on Terror'. On the plus side, good progress has been made in Iraq. The widely predicted collapse of coalition rule and civil war has failed to materialize. The coalition has relinquished political power, the new interim Iraq government is in place, and the nation is moving towards elections in January. Bush nullified the international cooperation issue by getting NATO on board. The Dems lack any traction on this issue, as they cannot find any significant proposals to differentiate themselves from the Repubs. The whole "Bush lied" claim has completely imploded, leaving the Dems looking foolish, especially when many of them try to cling to it even still.
On the negative side, IMO Bush has done a miserable job of explaining the War of Cultures and making Americans understand that we are fighting for our very survival. If Bush does not do this, it will hurt him. It will be interesting to see how GW handles this issue.
The economy is a critical weak point for the Bush campaign. Although we are in a recovery, job creation levels suck. American workers are not happy, and that bodes ill for GW. Like all economic recoveries, we are now in a period where the recovery is slowing some. The timing for this is obviously bad. Bush has a real challenge here to unveil some new proposal at the Repub Party Convention that will give Americans more confidence in GW's ability to deal with long-term unemployment and revitalizing the recovery. We shall see. In the meantime, if the economy does not pick up between now and November, that will be a dire threat to his reelection. Either way, this will be a major line of Dem attack on GW, and his campaign must run a good defensive strategy on this issue or pay the price.
The deficit is another economic point the Dems will hit GW hard on. GW should get out in front of this, pointing out why the spending was necessary and that the Dems voted for all of it as well.
As for social issues, Bush has an abominable new socialist prescription drug 'entitlement' passed and new education spending & reform. To the sheeple, Bush is looking pretty good on this front, an issue traditionally owned by the Democrats. There are hints that Kerry will offer another Hillarycare socialized medicine program in response. I think that would be a huge mistake (and a gift to Bush), as the outrageous cost of such a program alone is enough to turn off voters. Either way, it looks like GW has already outmanuvered the Dems on this.
There are many other issues that we are concerned about here that I do not think will play a big role in the election; gun control, privacy, the USA PATRIOT Act, property rights, religion in government, abortion, the War on Drugs, etc.
So that is the way it looks to me right now. Comments are welcome.
The Bush campaign seems to be content to let Kerry run while trying not to define himself in any meaningful way. The Repubs know that voters are seeing this, and not liking it. Kerry will have to come out firmly on all the issues eventually, and that is when the Repubs will start really hammering him on his record, his flip-flops, and his ultraliberal character. I think this will be a major facet of the Repub strategy.
The biggest issue in the campaign at this time, according to all polls, is security and the 'War on Terror'. On the plus side, good progress has been made in Iraq. The widely predicted collapse of coalition rule and civil war has failed to materialize. The coalition has relinquished political power, the new interim Iraq government is in place, and the nation is moving towards elections in January. Bush nullified the international cooperation issue by getting NATO on board. The Dems lack any traction on this issue, as they cannot find any significant proposals to differentiate themselves from the Repubs. The whole "Bush lied" claim has completely imploded, leaving the Dems looking foolish, especially when many of them try to cling to it even still.
On the negative side, IMO Bush has done a miserable job of explaining the War of Cultures and making Americans understand that we are fighting for our very survival. If Bush does not do this, it will hurt him. It will be interesting to see how GW handles this issue.
The economy is a critical weak point for the Bush campaign. Although we are in a recovery, job creation levels suck. American workers are not happy, and that bodes ill for GW. Like all economic recoveries, we are now in a period where the recovery is slowing some. The timing for this is obviously bad. Bush has a real challenge here to unveil some new proposal at the Repub Party Convention that will give Americans more confidence in GW's ability to deal with long-term unemployment and revitalizing the recovery. We shall see. In the meantime, if the economy does not pick up between now and November, that will be a dire threat to his reelection. Either way, this will be a major line of Dem attack on GW, and his campaign must run a good defensive strategy on this issue or pay the price.
The deficit is another economic point the Dems will hit GW hard on. GW should get out in front of this, pointing out why the spending was necessary and that the Dems voted for all of it as well.
As for social issues, Bush has an abominable new socialist prescription drug 'entitlement' passed and new education spending & reform. To the sheeple, Bush is looking pretty good on this front, an issue traditionally owned by the Democrats. There are hints that Kerry will offer another Hillarycare socialized medicine program in response. I think that would be a huge mistake (and a gift to Bush), as the outrageous cost of such a program alone is enough to turn off voters. Either way, it looks like GW has already outmanuvered the Dems on this.
There are many other issues that we are concerned about here that I do not think will play a big role in the election; gun control, privacy, the USA PATRIOT Act, property rights, religion in government, abortion, the War on Drugs, etc.
So that is the way it looks to me right now. Comments are welcome.
