A FUNNY thing happened on the way to the 2004 ballot box. Instant polls and political pundits as far as the eye could see declared John Kerry the winner of all three presidential debates. An estimated 160 million people watched the three debates combined; surely Kerry should have opened up a small lead in the polls by now, right? Wrong. The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of likely voters now has Bush ahead by 8 points. With Kerry holding a 1-point lead among likely voters in the same poll a week earlier, such a swing in momentum is as much a gut punch to the Kerry campaign as the Yankees' 19-8 drubbing of the Red Sox was to the Boston faithful Saturday night. With exactly two weeks to go, the election could still tilt either way, but the conventional logic says bet on Bush for four more years.
Ironically enough, both the Bush and Kerry campaigns furnish the same response when their candidate is either up or down in the polls and it inevitably includes buzzwords such as "fluid electorate" or "snapshot." Such a non-committal response is the norm if only because a campaign spokesman's gloating over a poll lead one day can just as easily turn into a serving of humble pie the next. A detailed look at the polls does reveal one startling fact: The last time John Kerry held a 5-point or greater edge in any reputable public opinion poll was Aug. 6. Sure, Bush's lead has grown and shrunk at times in the last few weeks, but John Kerry is simply unable to open up any sort of lead on the president.
Part of the problem facing John Kerry is that for all the attention devoted to gay marriage, social security, health care and other issues, the vast majority of Americans still care about just two things: terrorism and the economy.
At the risk of oversimplifying the former, Bush is the war-time president and Kerry is the peace-time president. Bush speaks of rooting out the terrorists and spreading liberty. Kerry meanwhile talks about building alliances, employing a "global test" when it comes to the use of force and reducing terrorism to a nuisance. So unless the world wakes up tomorrow and the threat of terrorism has been eradicated, Kerry will never gain any traction on the issue, no matter how many times he manages to mix the words "kill" and "terrorist" in the same sentence.
As for the economy, over 1.9 million new jobs were created since August 2003 -- 13 straight months of job gains. The Kerry campaign loves to harp on the fact that Bush will be the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose jobs on his watch. Yes, he will be, but don't forget the recession Bush inherited as well as the Sept. 11 attacks, which alone cost 1 million jobs and almost single-handedly wiped out the airline industry. The president highlights job growth, surging consumer confidence and a strong recovery in American manufacturing. Kerry's response? Rhetoric likening today's economy to the Great Depression.
Watching the third debate, it was easy to see why so many Americans say Bush relates to them more than Kerry does. Bush lauded the strong women in his life and the merits of listening to their advice. He showed visible emotion when recollecting the first time he and Laura met and jokingly referred to his own failings with the English language. All Kerry had to offer was that "he married up," to which the networks masterfully followed with a cut to his scowling wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. For Kerry, unfortunately, it's inescapable that Bush is the candidate most Americans want at their Memorial Day cookout, the guy you can share a Bud and watch the ball game with.
While the majority of voters will cast their vote with partisanship in mind,the level of cynicism and negativity associated with both campaigns in this year's election has caused some to look past the rhetoric and promises of each candidate. This small, yet crucial bloc of voters is just as likely to vote for a candidate based on his likeability as they are on the state of the economy.And so ultimately, the personal connection voters feel with Bush could be what carries him to victory.
Joe Schilling's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at jschilling@cavalierdaily.com.