Interesting
Op Ed in today's San Francisco Chronicle by
Martin F. Nolan, a veteran political reporter, is a fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
His four main points:
(1) A self-described "war president" needs to be winning the war at re- election time. U.S. troops are bogged down in Iraq, and the death toll is growing.
(2) Bush and his party represent a declining demographic. The Republican Party is a white, male, Anglo-Saxon Protestant party, as photos from its convention show.
(3) Re-election is not the presidential norm. Only 11 presidents have served eight consecutive years. President Reagan was the last Republican president to be re-elected.
(4) Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000. The three presidents who failed the first time around to win the popular vote did not return to the White House.