How To Beat Bush in 2004 (Rosemary)
Mickey Kaus says, "The truth remains, I think, that Bush doesn't have a scary, right-wing domestic agenda. He has closer to no domestic agenda, the major parts of his 2000 platform --education reform, tax cuts -- having already been enacted. That's why he's beatable in 2004."
So, he's beatable BECAUSE he kept his campaign promises...
So, that's how Clinton won re-election!
(link snitched from E Pluribus Unum)
Watch for him to push for making current tax cuts permanent, and (more important) to push for changes in tax laws to liberalize 401(k)s and make things even friendlier for investors.
Watch for a push forward to allow some workers to opt to put some of their SS money in private accounts--and watch the hard left squeal even as it discovers that a majority of voters favor this move, and their scare tactics won't work.
Medical savings accounts along 401(k) lines may also, finally, become a reality. Hopefullly theyl'll also make medical insurance 100% deductible--it's a scandal that it isn't already.
Watch for bans on partial-birth abortion, and for laws to make it tougher for people to evade parental notifications laws--which will scare the hell out of the paranoid, but which (once again) most sane Democrats will support, let alone Republicans and independents.
Less likely, watch for a program proposing spending cuts, which will be what the Democrats are most harshly critical of. That's what they'll run on, not Bush's "nonexistant" domestic agenda, since he'll probably have a very busy one.
But oh, by the way, anyone who thinks Bush is unbeatable in 2004 is mistaken. Anyone can be beaten--anyone.
The odds favor four more years, but you can never predict what will happen.
Hey, 2 years is plenty of time to really muck things up. I'm not suggesting that he isn't beatable. Only that it's STUPID to think that he will lose because he has already implemented most of his 2000 platform. Keeping promises=losing. That is seriously DUMB.
I wondered what the Democrats will do to recapture control of the United States government. Remember, their strategy after November 2, 1994 was a two-year negative political campaign against everything Gingrich. It worked. The Democrats recaptured every single seat in the northeast in 1996 that they lost in 1994. This is the power of negative campaigning. It is designed to suppress your opponent's voter turnout.
Since the Democrats demonstrated in 2002 that are lost for any strategy, I wonder just what they will do. Is it possible they will go back to the last strategy that worked for them in 1996?