Kerry’s poll ratings hold firm & it’s neck and neck in the betting
August 21st, 2004
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The White House race gets dirtier and dirtier
The Democratic ticket is holding firm in the polls with a clear lead in most of them after a sustained and well funded attack in an attempt to undermine John Kerry’s status as a Vietnam war hero.
A big New York Times investigation has sought to establish the truth behind the “Swift Boat Vertans for Truth”, who has been funding the TV commercials and features some remarkable revelations. It states:-
Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove’s, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush’s father’s presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush’s father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group’s television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush’s father faced off in the 1988 presidential election.
A particularly revealing aspect is that several of those veterans featured attacking Kerry had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.
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The issue could well re-bound on George Bush as he prepares for the Republican Convention in New York at the end of the month.
The Iowa Electronic Exchange, where “political futures” such as who will win are traded like a stock has seen the Kerry price ahead of Bush a number of time in the past few days. This market is on who wins most votes not who will be the next President so last time the Al Gore backers would have won.
The best UK bookmaker prices are 17/20 on both Bush and Kerry. You can get slightly better than evens on Kerry on the Betfair exchange market.
We stick with our call, first made in May, that Kerry will win. A President who has been so low in the popularity ratings in an election year has never gone on to win a second term. If you can get better than evens on Kerry take it.
Mike Smithson
MessageSpace Advertising
I\’m not in the least surprised by the White House links to the \’Swift Boat Veterans for Truth\’ (a deliciously Orwellian title). The same thing happened to that other Vietnam vet, John McCain, in the 2000 Republican primaries, with POW groups attacking McCain for his \’betraying\’ POWs who were allegedly still in Vietnam after the end of the war by denying that they were there, and also giving Clinton political cover by supporting the president\’s normalisation of relations with Vietnam. For more on this, see Paul Alexander\’s McCain biography, \’Man of the People\’. Hardly any surprise, then, that McCain has pointedly condemned the ads, whereas George W Bush has not.
Apart from the advert which mocked Michael Dukakis for wearing an over-large helmet in a tank (not looking the part as Commander-in-Chief was lethal in what was the last Cold War presidential election), there was the even more devastating Willie Horton ad. That too was screened by a flag of convenience group. I read somewhere, though, that the Willie Horton card was first played by Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic primaries (just as he misrepresented Bill Bradley\’s healthcare plan in the 2000 Democrat primaries).
I\’d also say that the findings of the You Gov/Economist poll (not just the headline voting intention figures, and Kerry\’s doing just as well among those certain to vote, but also small p print stuff such as the classic right track/wrong track question, and how people would feel after a Kerry/Bush victory) point towards a Kerry victory.
On the other hand, electronic voting is susceptible to fraud, and the religious right seems confident that it can get its people out to vote in key states such as Missouri.
Like any two horse race - there is no value in betting on either runner (at least on the nose).
But it is interesting that Kerry\’s support is holding up under these circumstances - it shows what the Democrats have learnt since the days of Dukakis.
Like last time this race is going to the wire and will depend on dodgy going ons in a handful of states - which will give the Republicans the advantage as they have the majority of Governorships.
I stll think that a Bush victory is the one that Blair is praying (and I mean praying) for. A Kerry win means the pro war faction has lost in every democracy (depending on Oz of course). Other than that Kerry is likely to open the book on intelligence and other factors - which could prove damaging to Blair in the way the \’crony\’ enquiries have not - at least in the short term.
See Andrew Sullivan\’s article in the Sunday Times News Review on how Bush has lost support compared with 2000 among such groups as Catholics and gay Republicans (a million votes lost in the second category).
Also, my old tutor tells me to watch out for the mid-Floridian Hispanics. They\’re Puerto Ricans and Mexicans who have moved to the state for economic reasons. Continuing with the Hispanic theme, Bush has even lost support among Cubans (who helped him no end in Florida in 2000). The reason why? The latest sanctions package against Cuba restricts the ability of Cuban-Americans to send money (or remittances) to families still in Cuba.
All this when Bush needs (given the increase in the Hispanic population) to increase his support among Hispanics just to stand still compared with 2000.
\”Sustained and well funded\”? An interesting way to describe funding at less than 1% of that spent by anti-Bush \”527\” organisations like MoveOn.org. The New York Times piece you allude to is already notorious in its inaccuracy. There is still a reasonable chance that the veterans\’ group (which contains a good number or registered Democrats, by the way) will succeed in getting their main point over, which is that Mr Kerry is an unprincipled fantasist (it was the publication of parts of Kerry\’s wartime diaries, which included claims of actions which others had carried out which moved many of the veterans to oppose him). Kerry\’s campaign have already conceded that the \”Christmas in Cambodia\” story which Kerry has always claimed to be the source of his political activism is simply not true. They have also started damage limitation on some of the other key parts of Kerry\’s biography (the grounds for his first medal). None of this would matter a jot if Kerry were not running solely on the basis of his four months in Vietnam, and without reference to his 20 years in the Senate. His supporters in the media may succeed in containing the damage, but that looks increasingly less likely. Were I a betting man (which I\’m not), I\’d look to see if anyone was offering attractive odds on either a Bush landslide, or the \”Torricelli Option\”, the last minute substitution of the Democrat candidate.
As to the references to the \”dirty\” campaign, and \”smears\”, while \”tu quoque\” is a lame rhetorical device, it is entirely appropriate to the tenor of the Democrat campaign from start to finish - there has been no real discussion of policy, just a long list of smears and insults about Mr Bush.
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