July 22, 2004 - Election Predictions
Liberals around the country are tense. The Bush administration has proven to be as partisan as some feared after the 2000 election. It has proven to be as aggressive and insensitive as some feared after the 9/11 attacks. It has proven to be as divisive, as self-centered, and as ignorant as many have feared for years. The overriding feeling for most liberals is fear. We fear the political machine may manipulate another election, leaving the administration with no reason to show any restraint. We fear for our place in the world, for the state of the environment, for our own rights and liberties, for the safety and lives of innocent civilians around the world, as well as of our young men and women who have been or may be sent to kill and be killed, and for our own lives, as Bush provokes more and more into anger against us. I share most of those fears, but I think most liberals are overlooking a lot of issues that would help comfort them.

The first is the very fear that we are all feeling. When people look back at past presidents on the other side of the aisle, they generally describe "mistakes", or remember how much they "disagreed" with the President. But with Bush, liberals have repeatedly expressed their "fear" for where Bush is leading us. Fear is a different emotion than simply disagreeing, and even if the conservatives of the nation don't share that fear, they still can sense the difference. In fact, a majority of the country shares at least our discomfort with the direction the country is headed.

More than any president at least in my memory, there has been an onslaught of public figures speaking out against President Bush. If it were limited to Hollywood stars or partisan officials, as with most past administrations, this could be laughed off as politics as usual. Unfortunately for the Bush administration, the criticisms are coming from an unprecedented number of former members of the administration, a wider range of entertainers who are more forcefully spreading the word, and from completely new projects. The success and wide visibilty of Moveon.org, Air America, and Fahrenheit 9/11 underscore the larger problem Bush will have in the 2004 election. Even foreign diplomats are speaking up against this administration more than usual.

More and more these days, even hardline conservatives are defending Bush with only half-strength arguments. Unable to withstand the constant failings of the administration, they come back with "Bush isn't that bad", or they attack liberals for their own beliefs. Some have already even suggested starting a retreat by taking Dick Cheney off of the ticket while boosting the position of moderates like John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger who disagree with many of the Bushies stands on important issues. If even hardline conservatives are losing their fervor, imagine what that means for the vast majority of the country that is not quite so close to the right wing.

Some liberals worry that despite the overwhelming trends that look encouraging for a Democratic win in 2004, there will be manipulation of the election like we saw during the 2000 election. I am sure there will be as much manipulation as possible from both Democrats and Republicans, as now everyone knows that an election actually could be as close as it was in 2000, so every manipulation matters. There are several differences in 2004 that will make these manipulations relatively worthless. Most significant is the fact that everybody is going to be watching the 2004 election with a magnifying glass. It will be very difficult for either party to get away with anything very extreme. Another factor is that liberals have now finally taken a more aggressive stance in the political debate. Therefore, you will see a lot more of the Democratic manipulations to balance out the Republican manipulations. The third factor is that there will be a much higher voter turnout this year. After years of landslide elections, the cycle of voter participation had curved down to an appalling level. As usually happens when it seems that the sky is falling, however, there will now be an upswing in voter turnout due to the results of the last election, and any manipulations will be far outweighed by the extra votes.

A specific example of this that is getting a lot of attention is the campaign of Ralph Nader. In 2000, Nader got around 3% of the vote, and since Bush won by a very small margin in Florida, some people feel that Nader cost Al Gore the election. A lot of those people also believe that he is a threat to John Kerry in this election, and Republicans are in fact trying to promote Nader in an effort to cause just such a result. This belief ignores the issues I mentioned above, and is not very realistic. Most obviously, support for Independent candidates historically has been strongest when they are fresh new faces to the race, and then it falls dramatically in future races. In this election, there are further complications for Nader. In 2000, the public generally did not believe their vote would affect the outcome of the election, so many of them felt free to vote for Nader instead of the Democratic candidate who was the competetive candidate who most closely matched those voters' values. The higher voter turnout this year will be in an attempt to make sure George Bush is either re-elected, or is taken out of office. There will not be a corresponding increase in new voters who are hoping to prop up Ralph Nader, and therefore Nader's percentage will go down. At the same time, almost all of those voters who felt free to vote for Nader in 2000 will not take the chance this year, so Nader's percentage will again go down. Finally, there is all the attention that his candidacy has gotten this year. As a result of the common belief that Nader is recklessly risking a George Bush re-election, many liberals have gone on the attack against Nader. Yet more bad news for Ralph Nader is his lack of support even among the Independent parties. He has not even been able to get on the ballot in most states due to this lack of support, and this will obviously drive his total numbers way down. I don't see Ralph Nader even mustering a sinle percentage point in this election, and I don't see him as a factor.

The final issue that I see as important to mitigate the fear of liberals in this country is simply timing. Pundits point out how close the race is at this point, based on polling data, and predict another close race. What they have mostly ignored is the fact that Democrats have barely started a campaign at all. Kerry only chose a running mate a week or so ago, and the Democratic convention isn't until next week. Outside of the "battleground" states, most of the country hasn't even seen the Kerry commercials. Kerry has remained relatively quiet about issues he is asked about repeatedly, and has even put John Edwards at the front of the campaign now that he's been chosen as his runing mate. Despite this relative anonymity, Kerry is polling very close to Bush, and in some cases even leading. It doesn't take much imagination to see where the polls will have him after a convention filled with great speakers supporting John Kerry, and a more vocal and aggressive campaign approach by the Kerry/Edwards ticket. By the time 3 months of actual campaigning have gone by, it will be clear that our worries were unrealistic, and the only people who matter in the Bush Administration are the ones who might get hired back after exposing some of the realities of the administration, and the few token moderates like Colin Powell, who will struggle to get his reputation back after being associated with George Bush.

So fear not, weary liberals. Kerry is going to win in a landslide, and we can all at least know that our tension will end around February... when the new Kerry administration has had a chance to uncover some of the hidden tricks the Bush Administration has left behind, and the United States of America can start repairing it's reputation, protecting it's people, and getting things back to normal.