Bush's political appeal?

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Many analysts think that with his immigration proposal, Medicare reform and wishy washy attitude towards spending, Bush has alienated a significant percentage of his core constituency i.e. right wing conservatives. And for them its basically a question of lesser-of-two-evils when it comes a time to choose between Bush and a Democrat. And many may actually not vote for Bush (or anyone) just to register their displeasure and to make sure that the GOP comes back to its rightwing fiscal and social positions.

Bush’s pros, in the eyes of his core constituency are that he has proven to be quite decisive, and his Presidency in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 is ranked very high. His faith-based funding programs, strong language about gays in his SotU address and pro-life views were just a call to his supporters that he has not abandoned their ideals fully. His war-chest is solid and he has good support amongst some groups, e.g. jews.

Will these be enough to appeal to a large percentage of voters who are in the middle? Will he be able to reassure his voters that he is not really all that stupid or irresponsible?

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Dubya needs another terrorist attack or a war he can 'win' quickly.. failing that even the capture of OBL will not do much to prop up his image.. .. unless of course Job creation takes an unexpected turn and we recover the millions of jobs lost in the last two years.. which will happen after hell freezes over..

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I think it all hinges on whether or not the press, pundits, prosecutors and public put as much emphasis and resources into finding out if a president lied about the reason for spending hundreds of billions and killing thousands on a failed policy than they did to find out if a president lied "having sexual relations" with another woman. Even if Bush or someone in his administration didn't lie, it would seem like a no-brainer for someone to investigate it with at least a portion of the vigor Ken Starr displayed with Clinton. An investigation would doom his presidency even if it dragged through November with no conclusion. If this were a democratic president who drummed up support for a war based on what was false information, an independent investigation would already be under way.

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Has someone hacked into Seminole’s account? :eek:

dazed

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Re: Bush's political appeal?

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Faisal: *
Many analysts think that with his immigration proposal, Medicare reform and wishy washy attitude towards spending, Bush has alienated a significant percentage of his core constituency i.e. right wing conservatives. And for them its basically a question of lesser-of-two-evils when it comes a time to choose between Bush and a Democrat. And many may actually not vote for Bush (or anyone) just to register their displeasure and to make sure that the GOP comes back to its rightwing fiscal and social positions.
[/QUOTE]

Well if I'm a Con., as you said, it would be a matter of choosing between the lesser of two evils. Now they can display their disapproval by not voting, but it is only going to end up hurting them. Because if a Dem comes into power, if partly due to their not voting, he is only going to make it worse. Not only would he do twice what Bush did to irritate them but also there are hardly going to be any tax cuts. At least the Cons know that if Bush is around they can count on some sort of tax rebates. And to give the man some credit, Bush has been able to do what his mandate was, that is, cut taxes.

[QUOTE]

Bush's pros, in the eyes of his core constituency are that he has proven to be quite decisive, and his Presidency in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 is ranked very high. His faith-based funding programs, strong language about gays in his SotU address and pro-life views were just a call to his supporters that he has not abandoned their ideals fully. His war-chest is solid and he has good support amongst some groups, e.g. jews.

Will these be enough to appeal to a large percentage of voters who are in the middle? Will he be able to reassure his voters that he is not really all that stupid or irresponsible?
[/QUOTE]

Jews have traditionally been Dems, though Bush with his strong support for Israel might have lured some of them away. Bush's delectability chances in Nov are def. contingent on how the economy shapes up and how worse the conditions are in Iraq.

There is this 10-80-10 rule that is taught to recruiting social groups and orgs. The rule is that 10% of the people will join no matter what, so no need to spend your scare resources on them trying to convince to join. The other 10% would not join regardless of what you do, and again, no need to waste your time there. What you need to concentrate on is the residue, that remaining 80% who are still ambivalent about whether to join or not. In these elections I'm sure the proportion is drastically different, but there would be die hard Cons and liberals and traditional party loyalists who would vote for their parties no matter what. It is those people who still haven't made up their mind or who can easily change mind that Bush would need to target. And if everything is in place, economy wise especially, Bush would get a good response from that batch of constituents.

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My thinking on this is that it’s better to have a strong Republican Congress and a moderate Democrat prez. One party with across the board control is asking for trouble. I don’t think Republicans can handle the presidency.. they’re too eager to push their ideas (not in itself bad) but also too willing to bend the rules to do so. Dems are usually weaker in this regard and that’s what’s needed of the presidency.

Anyway.. I’m not going to rant too much on this, plenty of other people already have:

See this for probably the best enunciation of conservative frustration.. a well-known ‘sensible’ conservative blogger.. he’s been pushing Edwards :slight_smile:

And from Drezner (another conservative blogger):
Here’s my position – I’m genuinely unsure of who I’m going to vote for. More and more, Bush reminds me of Nixon. He’s not afraid to make the bold move in foreign policy. On domestic policy, Bush seems like he’ll say or do anything, so long as it advances his short-term political advantage. If Karl Rove thought imposing wage and price controls would win Pennsylvania and Michigan for Bush, you’d see an Executive Order within 24 hours. Andrew Sullivan and others have delivered this harangue, so I won’t repeat it.

If – a big if – the Democrats put forward a credible alternative, then I could very well pull the donkey lever.
I’ll leave it at that.