GEOPOL analysis
Wednesday October 6 2004

by Pedro Cardoso

Who will most likely win the US Presidential election? - A prediction

To have a better perspective on the November Presidential election of 2004, we must first look at another election which had similar comparisons; Reagan in 1984.

Reagan was the incumbent president being challenged by a liberal Democrat. Just like George W. Bush, Reagan was strong in his ideology, was obviously adventuresome in his foreign policy, and likewise described as simple-minded by his opponents. Just like John Kerry, his challenger (Walter Mondale) was a US Senator.

Reagan won.

History seems to look unfavorably on senators running for the Presidency. The only President to EVER be elected directly from the Senate was Kennedy. Nixon had quit the Senate for 16 years before being elected. The reason for this is simple.
FLIP FLOPPING.

The main reason why senators are prone to loose elections is because they must constantly go on record taking a policy position. Throughout their political careers, they are voting on bills, making speeches, and making statements. A good team of researchers can sift through all those records and find evidence to support almost anything.

When going up against a former governor, like George Bush, that strategy doesn’t go the other way. The records for a governor are much more mundane and provincial. The building of a stadium, the cleaning of a street, when it comes to matters of national policy; those actions don’t have much importance. Governors don’t vote on national issues like abortion, and most of the time, their speeches are not even properly recorded. On the other hand, all senators take position on issues and shift them throughout their career. It is actually very easy to drudge up their records and make them look like ‘flip-floppers’. And, as you can see, the Bush campaign had done exactly as expected.

The Kerry team, on the other hand, seems to have an advantage of its own. Polls show approximately a tie between the decided voters. About 41% for Kerry and 43% for Bush (give or take). The two camps are actually fighting for 20% of the votes – well, 5% of those voters will vote based on simple stupidity (color of their ties), so they don’t count.

The 15% of undecided voters seem to be extremely sensitive to the war on Iraq and extremist militants. Although they are diverse, they seem to share the view that 9/11 and subsequent “War on Terrorism” was forced upon them – not a unilateral adventure. They seem to be uneasy about the reasons to be in Iraq, but, far from being anti-war, they don’t necessarily believe pulling out is an option.

The Kerry team has his military record to address specifically these 15% undecided voters. That’s why the Democrats chose him over Dean, that’s why they are leading the campaign on his Vietnam record.

The Democratic spearheading strategy is the war on Iraq and terrorism, but prosecuted by a man who went to war, not a man who stayed home during the war. This is the Democratic trump card. Or so they thought!

The Bush campaign surprised everyone when they did the unthinkable (no one ever said they were dumb) – they attacked Kerry’s record directly! From Jane Fonda affiliations to SWIFT boat allegations, the Bush team was able to blunt the sharpest of Kerry’s weapons. But in this fight for the precious 15, both camps for a while seemed to have forgotten their main base of support.

The precious 15 are, by nature, moderates. Both Republican and Kerry campaigns have transformed themselves specifically to talk to them (remember “compassionate conserativism”?) and by doing so, both teams risk alienating their ‘flanks’ by straying too far away from their base. This is where Kerry is at a major disadvantage, and why he may actually loose this election.

Every time Kerry tries to appeal to the moderate undecided voter, by saying things like “I would have voted for the war on Iraq even knowing what I know now” – he totally looses the anti-war support base. (Dean made sure of it in the primaries). Kerry’s ‘transformation’ is extremely complicated. He is to cast himself as a pro-war-when-needed-maybe-preemptively kind of President in order to hold on to support from both sides. Bush doesn’t have that problem.

Bush can actually gather his support base on issues other than Iraq while ‘transforming’ himself into a more moderate candidate. Why do you think issues like gay marriage and stem cell research appeared on the campaign? They seemed to come out of nowhere! – they were designed to gather all the more extreme right wing voters and solidify their base in order to be able to seem more moderate on Iraq.

This is why Kerry will loose this election. The two blocks of voters he must unite are widely separated. His anti-war majority support base will NOT accept Kerry’s support for the ongoing occupation of Iraq and a Bush-like foreign policy. The intelligent precious 15 he’s trying to convince will NOT accept a Howard Dean-syle liberal view on the conflict and how America wages war. That’s why Kerry has trouble with the concept of giving the UN ‘veto’ power over US security. The Bush campaign is well aware of this and is attacking him on exactly these points.

Kerry’s only saving chance is that Iraq will do the campaigning for him!

Every time Iraq seems to plunge into deeper chaos, the precious 15 become more anti-war, thus, it actually unites them! All Kerry needs to do is shut up and wait. The debates have brought the campaign down to this. How is the war in Iraq going? The Bush team (aware of the effect it has on the precious 15), will shine a very positive light on the situation – the Kerry campaign, specially through the debates, will try to show that the administration is being less than truthful about the actual success of the operation.

Between now and election day, the truth may actually be irrelevant. It’s the perception of truth that will decide it all that day. After all; a car bomb in Baghdad may seem like a setback for the Kerry campaign, but the Bush team will say that it’s a sign of success since the ‘terrorists’ seem to be more desperate. See how that works?

Pedro Cardoso

Disclaimer:

Please be aware that Geo-Pol Analysis usually contains information about socially and politically sensitive subjects. If you’re receiving these reports it’s because you’ve been trusted to understand its contents objectively. By readers sending this information to third parties, Geo-Pol runs the risk of provoking unnecessary and ill-informed responses. Such responses undoubtedly hinder the progress of our discussions.