Politics Blog

“In 30 seconds, this ad distorts the Democrats’ views and impugns their motives more crudely than the Democrats have done to Bush in two years.”

– Slate’s William Saletan on the RNC ad that’s currently running in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Really, Mr. Saletan? Let’s compare it with some of the things Democrats have said about President Bush.

Ted Kennedy: “This [Iraq war] was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud.”

Howard Dean: “John Ashcroft is not a patriot.”

John Kerry: “We have a fraudulent coalition, and I use the word fraud.”

Weasel Clark: “The party that stole the election in 2000 now wants to steal patriotism from us.”

Dick Gephardt: “[Bush has] declared war on the American people.”

And this is just scratching the surface. If you go through the innumerable Democrat presidential “debates,” you’ll find bilious political hate speech of a truly unprecedented shrillness and volume.

Against this barrage, the RNC (not the president!) runs one mousy ad referring to “some” who’re “attacking the president for attacking the terrorists” and this is supposed to be a negative ad? If anything, I expect and want the ad campaign to be much harsher than this. I hope you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

-- PoliPundit

Around this time next year, you could be sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner while President-elect Weasel Clark goes on a grovelling tour of Europe.

That’s right, folks. If elected, the major Democrat presidential candidates - Dean, Clark and Kerry - are all considering bowing and scraping before Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder and Kofi Annan before they’re even sworn in. America 2004 - The World Apology Tour! Where the future US president humbly disavows all that makes this country great and unique and promises to leave our security to the tender mercies of Jacques Chirac. 9/11? What 9/11?

Unless you want to see that spectacle next year, you have to do your part to ensure that George W. Bush gets re-elected by a crushing margin.

Today is Wictory Wednesday. Every Wednesday, I ask my readers to volunteer and/or donate to the Bush 2004 campaign.

If you’ve already donated and volunteered for the Bush campaign, then talk to your friends and enlist them in this battle for America’s very soul.

If you’re a blogger, you can join Wictory Wednesdays simply by putting up a post like this one every Wednesday, asking your readers to volunteer and/or donate to the Bush campaign. And do e-mail me at wictory@blogsforbush.com so that I can add you to the Wictory Wednesday blogroll, which will be part of the Wictory Wednesday post on all participating blogs:

-- PoliPundit

I stopped watching the Democrat presidential “debates” a couple of months ago. No one was paying me to endure the torture of sitting through them for more than 30 minutes; so I decided to let the professionals, who get compensated for their suffering, watch the darn things.

Apparently the professionals have had enough too, as Opinion Journal’s James Taranto illustrates:

Forgive us, but we’re not sure we can take any more of these Democratic debates. We started watching yesterday’s eight-man show (sans Lieberman) in Iowa (with Johns Kerry and Edwards checking in via satellite from Washington) but just got exhausted. For about an hour our TiVo has been paused 34 minutes into the two-hour event; John Edwards is frozen on the screen in a goofy pose with his tongue hanging halfway out of his mouth. It’s not exactly an inspiring sight, but we just can’t go on. Maybe later.

BTW, if you don’t have TiVo, you’re still living in the 20th century. I’m a huge TiVo fan. I even performed brain surgery on mine to increase its recording time.

-- PoliPundit

“I think the Democrats will look back at 2003 and feel very much like they did in 1971. They could have won the election this year, but not next year.”

– Dick Morris, on how the soaring economy and passage of the prescription drug bill have deprived Democrats of virtually all their issues.

I’ve been saying the same thing for several months. The election is not being held today. It’s in 2004.

-- PoliPundit

In the 2004 predictions thread below, reader Scott Elliott points out an interesting presentation by Republican pollster Bill McInturff. The presentation predicts a Bush landslide in 2004. It’s from June 2003; but its predictions are holding up extremely well so far.

-- PoliPundit

Mickey Kaus says that Howard Dean’s campaign needs to start helping the fast-fading John Kerry:

It seems as if the more serious threat to Dean would come if Kerry fades so quickly that a) beating him in N.H. doesn’t look like a big deal and b) someone like Edwards gets to move up and mount a more credible anti-Dean challenge. … In 1984 terms, Kerry is John Glenn; Edwards is at least a potential Gary Hart. … Memo to Dean manager Joe Trippi: Time to start building Kerry up!

-- PoliPundit

In 2001 Bret Schundler, the smart Republican candidate for governor of New Jersey, went down to defeat against a mediocre Democrat opponent because Democrats succeeded in painting him as “too conservative for New Jersey.”

Bill Pascoe, who managed Schundler’s campaign, says the lessons of that defeat can be applied by the GOP to crush Howard Dean in 2004:

First, understand why your opponent has problems with significant elements of his base, and drive wedges where you can, to the maximum extent possible; second, recognize that it is not your campaign’s job to tell the objective truth, it’s your campaign’s job to tell the version of the truth that puts your opponent in the worst light possible (it’s his campaign’s job, after all, to do the same to you); third, don’t get suckered into the trap of only talking about issues the media says are important – instead, choose the issue matrix over which you want to wage war, and stick to it no matter what; and fourth, if need be, if you can’t make a legitimate argument against your opponent on a key issue, use your opponent’s party’s position on the issue as the battleground, and wrap it around his neck. Make him pay for the sins of his party. Guilt by association still works, so don’t be shy in exploiting it.

In other words, “Schundlerize” him.

Dean will present such a fat target in the general election that it’s hard to decide where to start attacking him. On his hardcore opposition to Iraq? On his opposition to the PATRIOT Act which, despite the elites’ disdain, enjoys overwhelming support among voters? On his desire to raise taxes on the average American family by well over $1,000? On his desire to reduce the child tax credit, reinstitute the marriage penalty and bring back the death tax? On his signing a civil unions bill? On his support for partial-birth abortion? On his opposition to parental notification when minors have abortions? On his opposition to the medicare prescription drug benefit just passed by Congress? On his call to impose more bureaucratic regulations on businesses? The list goes on and on.

Pascoe also suggests interesting lines of attack on issues where Dean is supposedly less vulnerable, like gun control.

He concludes:

Finally: The media Bigfeet are already projecting your strategy next fall, arguing that Republicans will be running a race against McGovern and Mondale – soft on war, big on tax increases. Don’t limit yourself to these issues just because they’re seen as “more important” by the media. Neither one of those issues makes Dean appear “too extreme” to deserve the Presidency. Neither brings in the cultural value questions that will bring out to vote the four million religious voters who sat out the 2000 presidential election. Neither will convince suburban swing voters that he doesn’t represent their values. Instead of McGovern and Mondale, think Carter and Dukakis – too wimpy to be trusted with our defenses, outside the mainstream on cultural values.

-- PoliPundit

Posting will be light today. So here’s a question for you to discuss: What will President Bush’s victory margin (electoral and popular) be in 2004? Click Comments and spout off to the thousands of people who read this blog.

To help you along, here are past presidential election maps. Keep in mind that the electoral map in 2004 favors Bush because of redistricting. Here’s an interactive 2004 electoral map that scales states according to their electoral votes.

-- PoliPundit

As I’d noted was likely, GDP growth for the third quarter has been revised upward to an almost-absurd 8.2 percent!

-- PoliPundit

If you’re a Stanford alumnus, you might be interested to know that your alma mater is using your donations to build tunnels beneath roadways so that salamanders don’t have to cross the road. The project iscosting $200 per salamander.

-- PoliPundit