A report for Washington: <\/b> I know many Democrats, and they all<\/p>\n
seem highly pessimistic about 2004. They think that Karl Rove is a genius,<\/p>\n
that Bush will coast to re-election because of the Iraq war, that Republicans<\/p>\n
have enormous advantages in money and media support, that the country<\/p>\n
is moving rightward, that the Democratic leadership is weak and divided—in<\/p>\n
short, that we are headed for a landslide.<\/p>\n
I dislike political prognostication and am generally not good at it.<\/p>\n
(It seems to me that the important question is not who will <\/i>win,<\/p>\n
but what policies we should want to prevail.) Nevertheless, I cannot resist<\/p>\n
observing that the future is completely unpredictable and that a Democrat<\/p>\n
could be the one to win by a landslide in ’04<\/b>. The economy will need<\/p>\n
to improve quickly to get above the level that usually re-elects presidents<\/p>\n
(3% annual growth). Surveys show very little support for the Bush economic<\/p>\n
strategy if it is separated from his personal popularity. The stimulative<\/p>\n
effects of the new budget are likely to be small, and the expected postwar<\/p>\n
bounce has been modest. Iraq represents a genuine victory right now, which<\/p>\n
no one should gainsay—but unfortunately for all of us, it could still<\/p>\n
easily turn into a momentous disaster. Cutbacks at the state level are<\/p>\n
going to remain a huge issue, and state leaders will have justifiable<\/p>\n
reasons to blame Washington. If governors start accusing Bush of cutting<\/p>\n
taxes at their expense, it could create a serious political problem for<\/p>\n
him. (The $20 billion in aid to states that Congress just passed may inoculate<\/p>\n
Bush against charges that he abandoned the states, so it very lucky for<\/p>\n
him.) The Republicans are planning to use Sept. 11 politically, even choosing<\/p>\n
New York City for their convention—a strategy that will backfire<\/p>\n
if New Yorkers effectively protest the way that they have been mistreated<\/p>\n
since 2001. (Or if, God forbid, we are attacked again.) The demographic<\/p>\n
trends in states like Florida point the Democrats’ way, and they start<\/p>\n
with a 2000 base that was bigger than Bush’s. The absence of serious third-party<\/p>\n
competition from the left will help too. Even the media may be neutralized<\/p>\n
if reporters shift, pack-like, from adulating Bush to criticizing him<\/p>\n
once his popularity starts to slip for other reasons.<\/p>\n
In short, this is a nonpartisan blog, but I wouldn’t bet a lot of money<\/p>\n
on a Republican victory, even if I were a Republican.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A report for Washington: I know many Democrats, and they all seem highly pessimistic about 2004. They think that Karl Rove is a genius, that Bush will coast to re-election because of the Iraq war, that Republicans have enormous advantages in money and media support, that the country is moving rightward, that the Democratic leadership […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}