Insofar as anecdotal evidence signifies much . . . this is absurd:
Jim Vyvyan, a high school teacher from Union Grove, Wis., said his and his wife's decisions are likely to hinge on the debates, which begin Thursday in Miami with a discussion of foreign policy. Vyvyan opposed the Iraq war from the beginning and does not believe the upbeat appraisals of conditions there from Bush and Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi. But he harbors strong doubts about Kerry.Really, how come Jim Vyvyan has a question about this? If you think Iraq was bad from the start and getting much worse, W is not your candidate. I want to fly to Miami and smack Mr. Vyvyan around (with the hands I used to throttle John Kerry)."Actually I would have voted for Kerry three months ago, but he's not improved or not shown his positions any more clearly in the last three months than he did a year ago," Vyvyan said. "I think he's trying to be everything to everybody, and you just can't."
Seriously, though, it seems to me that if you listen closely to Democrats mumbling under their breath, there's a palpable wish that we had Howard Dean instead of John Kerry. Not Howard Dean the Candidate, per se, but Howard Dean the Principled Position. It's the same principled position that wouldn't fly in Iowa for all the right reasons, and it's very difficult to know what regard would be given that principled antiwar position had Howard Dean become the Democratic nominee but everything else stayed the same.
Would Iraq feel like the same disaster were there a real antiwar candidate in contention, one whom the Republicans villified for his position from day one? Hard to say, but seeing as how in this universe, one in which over the last few months the American citizenry has flip-flopped on whether the war was justified, Bush has yet to be tacked with any responsibility for the misery in Iraq. In our principled-position dimension, Dean would have been yelling at Bush before anyone was aware that it would get so much worse—I could really see how Bush could have neutralized Dean and his legions as so far out of the mainstream that even when he was proven right, he'd still be wrong.
I mean, what did Bush nail Kerry with that has him so far down? Windsurfing? Sure, I can't think of a response to Bush's newest TV spot other than "yeearrgh!" But, still—what's Bush's plan for Iraq? He doesn't think he even needs one because he doesn't acknowledge that there's a problem. I do see a problem. Americans are getting their heads chopped off! I can't emphasize enough how unacceptable I find decapitations. Would you have supported Iraq had you known we'd find Saracens with scimitars instead of weapons of mass destruction? Don't you fire the guy who thinks that Americans getting their heads chopped off in the desert is better than the status quo in America? And don't you really fire him if that guy is responsible for both states of affairs? Mr. Vyvyan knows this, so he says, and yet he's still considering George W. Bush. How?
Posted by Kriston at September 28, 2004 11:49 AMGod, I grew up near this Vyvyan guy. Ridiculous. I think the problem we are up against is that the Republicans have managed to make this election a referendum on Kerry and not Bush. Sort of a strange scenario considering Bush is the incumbent, and the mess he's made of the world.
Posted by: Blogenlust at September 28, 2004 12:13 PM...or maybe more people support the war & Bush than you'd like to admit. Couldn't this be a referendum on W., and that he'll actually win that referendum?
Posted by: j.scott barnard at September 28, 2004 1:27 PMWell, maybe. But, beheadings.
Posted by: Kriston at September 28, 2004 1:43 PMScott,
No.
Posted by: matty at September 28, 2004 2:30 PMI'm still pretty pissed off about what the media and the DNC did to Dean. He's one of a handful of politicians I've ever seen who always came across in an honest, forthright way -- like a real person, with very few artificial political mannerisms. Reminds me of McCain in that respect. Whatever other shortcomings you'd like to ascribe to him, I think that quality would've allowed him to completely obliterate Bush when it came time to debate.
This is a very big subject that I'll probably expand upon the day after the election if Kerry loses (and I can let loose all my pent-up Kerry hatred). The Kerry choice in the primaries was highly cynical, a reflection more of who Democrats thought could win the general election than any high regard for Kerry. Dean would've either been blown out by Bush or won the presidency; he was high risk and high reward. Cautious Kerry, by contrast, now looks on track to lose by 5-10 points.
Kerry has yet to break through to ordinary people with a message about how he would do anything differently in Iraq. So voters are left with the unrealistically optimistic George Bush who wants more of the same, versus the critic Kerry who wants to do some unspecified stuff. That's not much of a choice at all. Saying Bush by default should lose because he got us into this isn't a pro-Kerry argument, and it's easy enough to deflect by attacking the rhetorically challenged Kerry campaign, as BC04 skillfully has done.
The answer to your "how" question is rather simple then. How does a bad president get reelected? The voters see the alternative as worse.
That all said, voting against Kerry because he hasn't "improved" is quite silly.
Posted by: Dimmy Karras at September 28, 2004 7:51 PMBush being able to call anyone "rhetorically challenged" is sad. I think Dimmy hit the nail on the head.
Posted by: David at September 28, 2004 9:03 PM"over the last few months the American citizenry has flip-flopped on whether the war was justified"
The only one I see flip-flopping is John Kerry.
...and Mr. Vyvyan, but he doesn't count.
Posted by: David at September 28, 2004 9:11 PMJust so you know, some people DO support the war...and support Bush for being Bush, not because Kerry isn't tan enough or whatever. Maybe we're in the minority, but so were the abolitionists at one time. The war is right and just. --s
Posted by: j.scott barnard at September 29, 2004 8:46 AMScott, we all know Bush has his fans, but the question is why some of the proverbial swing voters, like the idiot Kriston quotes, may vote Bush in spite of being unhappy about the war.
Posted by: Dimmy Karras at September 29, 2004 2:08 PMAnd Scott, you realize that many people, myself included, still view removing Saddam as "right and just" when considered in a vacuum, but that's not question here. Every piece of evidence I've seen says that the Iraq invasion -- no matter how that country turns out -- undermined the war on terror and helped al-Qaida. And when you consider how this administration has bungled the occupation and done so with a smiling face, then I have to start wondering about their honesty and their competence. THEN, when you add on top of that the deficit, the domestic dirty tricks, the duplicity, and the downright cruely (i.e., the FMA), I just don't get how someone like Vyvyan cannot realize that no matter how much he and Bush agree on the Big Idea, Bush and his team are not actually pursuing that idea with any semblence of competence!
Posted by: matty at September 29, 2004 4:53 PMMR. Vyvyan is a cool guy.
Posted by: Robbie at May 18, 2005 6:05 PM