The incumbent has a tremendous advantage unless at least one is true:
- The economy is bad and trending down
- Foreign policy has led to a disaster
- Strong 3rd party candidate splits the vote
Incumbents who lost in the last century:
Taft: T Roosevelt ran as 3rd party candidate
Hoover: Economy in the sewer and trending down
Johnson: Foreign policy disaster in Vietnam
Carter: Economy bad with downtrend-- didn't start getting better until years later + Iran hostage crisis.
Bush: Economy was in downtrend, but started to rebound a few months before election. Perot took 19% of the vote, especially in pro-Bush regions. Lee Atwater, brilliant evil political strategist was dead.
Bush II (hopefully):
Economy lost 3 million jobs, but is expanding more than 1 year from election. Uptrend is a positive indicator for those Americans with jobs (90%). Unclear how the economy will play out, but right now it won't hurt Bush enough to lose.
Foreign policy: "War on terror" Talaban defeated in Afghanistan, but Bin Laden on the loose. Iraq war causing American casualties but Saddam captured. If war is going really badly, it will hurt Bush, if casualty rate is down by the summer, then Bush will play the Commander in Chief role to great effect.
Third Party: If Nader runs, he mostly siphons off votes from the nominee.
At the moment, he would be re-elected easily. If the nominee can be
painted as untrustworthy in any way, then * would win in an historic landslide. It will be hard for the nominee to paint Bush as untrustworthy unless one of the scandals breaks open (Traitorgate) because he has already been stereotyped in the popular culture as "honest" and not smart enough to be manipulative. Ironic, given the reality, but ....
To win our candidate will:
- have to get a few breaks (Bush scandal, or bad events)
- be perceived as a great guy, honest and consistent, and very personable to at least break even with the Bush myth-making
- neutralize Bush as Commander in Chief. Be impressive on foreign affairs.
In this analysis, barring large changes of fortune, only Kerry or Clark have a real chance to defeat Bush (due to point 2) unless he/she gets some "lucky" breaks. And both will have a difficult time.
Remember Bush is only hated by those who understand
who he has been, who he is, and what he has really been doing. Without a scandal adjudicated by a neutral party, all charges against him will be reduced to partisan political attacks and will not stick.
