September 5, 2004

Party Conventions Differed in Approach to Reality

It’s Labor Day, the presidential nominating conventions are over and candidates turn into the home stretch.

Public opinion polls indicate a narrow Bush victory. Anyone who will predict the outcome of a presidential race at this stage will lie about other things too.

Nonetheless, part of the game is to peer at soggy tea leafs and to foretell outcome.

Nominating conventions once were bargaining sessions. Electoral votes were traded for benefits and cast after a week of speeches, parades, cheers and huddles in smoke-filled rooms.

Reaching consensus on a platform of issues and a candidate was a major accomplishment. Today -- modern attention spans being short and TV ubiquitous -- the political process is bobtailed.  

The meat and potatoes are a series of speeches culminated by a pro-forma "acceptance of nomination" by a pre-selected candidate. Televisors understandably relegate the process to one-hour presentations late on three successive nights. Enough is enough.

Democrats were first out of the chocks in Boston – home base for liberals. Nominee John Kerry spent 50 minutes criticizing President Bush’s handling of the war on terrorism, and tax increases.

He devoted three minutes to his plans for social issues. He said he would do things differently.  

Republicans chose to kick off their campaign at New York City for the first time in history. Strange. The Big Apple also is a bastion for liberals where 200,000 radical protestors can be put on the street during a lunch hour.

If Bush loses the election, a major cause will be the choice of NYC for its bon voyage party.  There is no way New York’s fat electoral votes can be wrested from the nation’s largest collection of welfare dependents.

Perhaps Bush thought proximity to the Trade Towers catastrophe would emphasize the reason he retaliated against terrorists.

The GOP winding was the most interesting. California Gov. Arnold Schwartznegger was exhibit-number-one for poor, immigrant making good under the American dream.

Sensation of the Grand Old Party was Democrat Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia. He castigated Kerry, Edwards and Democrat party leaders for ducking the War On Terrorism and "abandoning" the virtues of patriotism, faith and brotherhood.

He termed Kerry a "flipper" and one who would fight terrorists with "spit balls." While he was at it, he lumped Sen. Ted Kennedy and the New York Times as unsavory characters.

If Kerry loses the election, he can trace the beginning of the end to Miller’s stem-winder.

The winner and loser of the presidential election likely will be determined by an "October surprise." This is an unforeseen event skewing the perception of a candidate. In politics, perception is reality.

Possibilities are capture of Osama bin Laden, a terrorist attack in the U.S.A., civil war in Iraq, destruction of Saudi Arabia oil fields, a major corporation bankruptcy, personal scandal.

Sometimes the unsettling event is under the control of a candidate or his surrogates. In this case, the "moment of truth" -- when a fighting bull realizes it is doomed – is Oct. 15.

It is critical that the event have two weeks to sink in with that 15 percent of "middle-of-the-road" voters. They decide all elections.

A controlled revelation three weeks or more before Election Day gives the target time to counter attack.

In the privacy of a voting booth, there is only one issue. "It’s the economy, stupid!"  Most people vote their pocketbooks – or what’s left after Uncle Sam gets through confiscating and redistributing it.

It is true that, 1.5 million new jobs have been created this year by a smidgen of tax cuts.

However, the rate of recovery from the almost-recession -- inherited from President Clinton’s largest tax increase in history -- is slower than wished.

Forget the Vietnam War. That’s history. The War On Terrorism is a victory in progress. There are just three issues in a presidential election – jobs, jobs, jobs.

Bush defended his war decisions but talked mostly about domestic issues during his convention. Kerry talked exclusively about his patriotism and Bush’s faults.  

Absent an October surprise, put your money on Bush.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist who can be contacted at linwms@lindseywilliams.org