Contrarian Steyn

"Neither smiles nor frowns, neither good intentions nor harsh words, are a substitute for strength."

     - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), 35th U.S. president

With practically every poll I see showing the Kerry/Edwards ticket defeating Bush/Cheney, and listening to my wife tell me she thinks the Democrats will win in November, it would be easy to become discouraged about the Republican's chances of being re-elected this fall. But I am still optimistic for many of the reasons suggested by columnist Mark Steyn in his article in the U.K.'s The Spectator magazine (brief registration required).

In his inimitable manner, Steyn opines that the "anyone but Bush" Democrats whose votes Kerry and Edwards are counting on may become disenchanted if Kerry doesn't do something to hold their interest between now and election day:

"...the question is whether the base's strong anti-Bush motivation can survive its non-existent pro-Kerry motivation. Key demographics--such as blacks and Hispanics--are reported to be antipathetic to the candidate and difficult to corral. Even the fawning press has a tough job talking him up."

He quotes Jodi Wilgoren writing about Kerry in the New York Times:

"Like a caged hamster, Senator John Kerry is restless on the road. He pokes at the perimeter of the campaign bubble that envelops him, constantly trying to break out..."

Steyn suggests that it would have sounded better if Wilgoren had substituted "caged tiger" for "caged hamster," but surmises that she had her reasons for describing him as she did. His reaction to the Wilgoren piece leads him to describe Bush as a rat--lab rat that is:

"Bush, meanwhile, is like some indestructible lab rat. They keep tossing some lethal new poison in there every week and he digests it all and keeps on going. The economy's a bust! Iraq'sa quagmire! There are no WMD!But Bush just ploughs through it all, and in the end the dynamic of the race seems barely affected."

Having said that, Mr. Steyn predicts that Bush will win and provides us with an analysis of how he thinks the voting will play out in November. He summarizes by giving us another reason he puts his money on Bush:

"But the other reason I'd bet on Bush is more basic: he tends not to lose. In 2002 Michael Moore gloated that the midterms would be the shot heard round the world--a massive repudiation of the moron warmonger--and instead the President had a great night of significant incremental gains in the Senate and House. If he's a moron, he's the luckiest moron who ever lived."

He addresses issues such as the economy, Iraq, and the President's "lies" that are being touted as negatives by Kerry/Edwards, then cites a Pew poll that identifies the strongest associations people have with Bush as being positive:

"The Bush characteristics most frequently cited by the public are that he is tough and won't back down (53 per cent) and that he is strong and decisive (48 per cent), although 44 per cent did describe him as stubborn. Conversely, only 18 per cent selected Kerry as the candidate who most epitomises strength and decisiveness, and only 15 per cent saw him as the one who is tougher and more tenacious...The only theme that more of the public saw as best describing Kerry rather than Bush was that he was a flip-flopper."

Why does this matter? Steyn tells us why he thinks it does:

"...if voters think this election is about the small print on your credit-card statement or ten-year-old girls without winter coats or any of John Edwards' other bizarre obsessions, they'll ditch Bush and Cheney. But if they think it's about American resolve in dangerous times, Kerry and Edwards look way out of their league."

I don't know about you, but I think it's, as Steyn puts it, "about American resolve in dangerous times."  Stanley Crouch, columnist for the New York Daily News, does too. If Kerry and Edwards are to have a chance of defeating Bush, they'd do well to give all this some consideration, but I bet they won't.