It's traditional at election time for candidates to reach out to the other side, to win support from their rivals' followers. Kerry is doing that, pushing lots of rhetorical buttons normally associated with Republicanism -- strength, security, hunting and killing enemies, etc. (It's true he always adds a 'but', though, and after the 'but' comes the Democratic position, clearly different.) Bush, this time, is not reaching out to the Democratic base, or not doing it convincingly. He's singing to the choir. He seems to think that pleasing the narrow conservative base is enough. He seems to think that if he hammers home GOP values, the undecideds and Democrats will swing into line behind them. This is a huge miscalculation, and will lose him the election.
I'm not so sure that singing to the choir is so much a disadvantage to Bush since he seems to be doing well in the polls. He may be losing Republicans, but I think he's gaining as many if not more cultural "conservatives." It's rather disgusting, really.
Well, yeah. Kerry is doing better now, after the debates. But Bush was up for a scary while. I was actually surprised that people were still undecided enough to switch sides as a result of watching the debates. I mean, come on. It isn't that hard to compare Bush to anybody else and see that he's a total ignoramus, even if you compare him against flip-flop Kerry.
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Date: 2004-10-09 03:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
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