Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: My gut...The incumbant always has the advantage.

It's not so one-sided
Robert — (archived)

One of the advantages of the challenger is that the incumbent has built a record based on doing things. The things that don't work or are perceived as not working give the challenger a road map, or at least a starting point, to lay out a platform based on contrast. The "Anybody-But-Bush" movement is based on the simple proposition that a new President can do a better job simply promising to not do the things Bush has done. It may be simplistic, but as I've argued before, this election is about emotion, and emotion is simplistic. If you've come to see Bush as a national headache, you naturally turn to anybody who simply promises to end the pain.

Kerry's skittishness about taking solid stands seems like a pragmatic response to an extremely negative campaign environment. No matter what he says, even if he articulates a policy identical to one of Bush's, the Bush campaign will spin it into something to use against Kerry. (Not to say that both sides don't do that.) I think that both sides want to delay substantive policy debates until the last possible moment, and that the televised debates will be the defining events of the campaign.

As for Kerry's campaign seeming defensive, I think that's a temporary phase and mostly due to the Bush campaign's success at maintaining a constant barrage of attacks to keep Kerry on the defensive as much as possible. SOP--in any campaign each side wants to tie down the other side responding to charges, to prevent the opponent from gaining ground articulating his own positions. Heavy flak and chaff this year in the skies over America.

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