The Big Bush Bounce
By Ryan Walsh (09/08/04)
"The Republicans have no idea how much harm they have done to themselves."
That was Michael Moore in a "USA Today" column on the Republican National Convention. By penning such a blatantly miscalculated assessment, it’s almost as if Moore is attempting to demonstrate, beyond any reasonable doubt, how consistently and completely wrong a human being can be.
Although most observers never thought the GOP convention would hurt the president, many thought it wouldn’t help him much either. When polls showed little or no bounce for Kerry after his convention in Boston, the Beltway talking-heads explained that, because the country is so politically polarized, the number of the coveted "undecided voters" is simply too small. The explanation seemed logical, but at that time it was only half grounded in fact. If the Bush campaign received little or no bounce after its convention, then the assessment would be accurate.
But Bush bounced.
As I write, three comprehensive post-convention polls are in circulation. The “Newsweek” poll puts Bush at 52 percent among registered voters and Kerry at 41—a 13 percent margin bounce. A “Time” poll shows exactly the same numbers, marking "the first time since the presidential race became a two person contest last spring, there is a clear leader…." Zogby also has Bush up, albeit only slightly.
One particular new figure jumped out at me from the “Newsweek” and “Time” polls: "47% trust President Bush more to handle the economy, while 45% trust Kerry." Yet this is an issue, like the environment and health care, which Democrats usually dominate. Although the convention speakers mentioned only briefly the administration’s economic accomplishments, a favorable jobs report last Friday, coupled with a lower unemployment rate of 5.4%, seems to have restored a modicum of the president’s well-deserved credibility on this issue.
But perhaps the recent bounce has less to do with Bush’s precipitous triumph and more with Kerry’s ruinous decline. In an act of unprecedented desperation, Kerry broke the unwritten rule of American presidential campaigns: during the opponent’s party convention, lay low. After Bush’s major address on Thursday night, Kerry rounded up some media and some supporters (excuse the redundancy) and gave his midnight "rebuttal." The moderate-to-liberal Mort Kondracke of “Roll Call” called it "petty." Indeed, embarrassed Democrats nationwide wished it hadn’t happened.
True, the event was tasteless and petty in form, but it was both of these and more in content. "For the past week, they attacked my patriotism and my fitness to serve as commander in chief," Kerry whined. "Well, here's my answer. I’m not going to have my commitment to defend this country questioned by those who refused to serve when they could have and by those who have misled the nation into Iraq."
Now juxtapose these two images in your mind: one of President Bush eloquently defending his vision of liberty in the Middle East and a thriving, prosperous "ownership society" at home, and another of a desperate and disheveled Senator Kerry accusing the president and vice-president of questioning his patriotism (they never did) before a small crowd in Ohio into the late hours of the night.
Michael Moore writes about "why Democrats shouldn’t be scared." Maybe that is reason alone for a bit of apprehension.
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