Comments on: Bush And McCain

By: C Stanley

C Stanley — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:13:17 +0000

That’s exactly right, Chris. Even if you accept a premise where it’s potentially equally damaging for McCain to cozy up too much to Bush as it is for him to diss him (I don’t even think that’s the case- I think most moderates/independents don’t require a litmus test of BDS), it’s still the case that it’s more normal for a member of the party of the incumbent president to be cordial with that president than it is for him to be adversarial toward him. In short, McCain happily accepting Bush’s endorsement is at worst a dog bites man story; if McCain had decided to give Bush the brush off it would have been man bites dog, and the media frenzy that would follow that would be far more harmful to him.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:52:19 +0000

Now that he’s won the primaries the next task is to consolidate support within the party. Going to the nominal head of the party, the President, would be an obvious first step. Why is that news?

By: C Stanley

C Stanley — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:35:19 +0000

Oh, another interesting poll stat- for quite a while, solid majorities of Americans wanted the troops brought home from Iraq ASAP (though of course they differed on what they meant by that- timelines or not, etc.)

This latest poll shows that now the number wanting that are nearly tied with the number of people who don’t feel that way- 49% to 47%. I think if this trend continues, the moment the lines cross and the majority no longer favors quick withdrawal, is the moment that the Dem candidate will have to worry (and change the subject to the economy, of course )

By: C Stanley

C Stanley — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 16:32:42 +0000

If the progress in Iraq continues though, people in general become much less critical of GWB’s foreign policy. The recent Pew polls showed that we’ve crossed a pivot point on Iraq; a majority of Americans now believe that it’s possible that we’ll ‘win’ Iraq, or that our mission can be successfully accomplished. Over the past few months, the trend line has gone up among Republicans, Independents, and even Democrats (less so among Dems, of course- but the increase in number of Independents who see it that way is significant.) Are those who see the mission as possible to achieve going to want to elect a president who didn’t believe that (and who ran on a platform of bringing troops home as soon as possible) or to elect the guy who staunchly supported the mission and ran on platform of completing it?

On terrorism, too, it’s interesting to view those poll results. Majorities in all groups of voters give credit to Bush for preventing more terrorist attacks- except for liberal Democrats when they’re segregated from moderate or more conservative Dems (and I think even in the liberal Dem group, 30-something percent admitted that Bush’s terrorism prevention has been somewhat successful.)

So really, although Bush is unpopular and certain aspects of his foreign policy are (rightly, IMO) disfavored by many people, I don’t think that the election is going to be decided according to who changes course from Bush the most drastically.