My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.
2004-11-03
Winners and Losers
This post will take some time to really flesh out, but I'm going to go ahead and put down my early impressions, and fill them in in more detail later.
WINNERS
1. President Bush/Karl Rove/Ken Mehlmann et al. Clearly, the plan--the VERY DISCIPLINED PLAN--worked out exactly as they would have projected. The team did a great job on GOTV and organization, the President stayed on message and made absolutely zero mistakes in the campaign, and the clarity of message resonated. One of the radio shows was asking if this was a "mandate"; I say, clearly: when you're the first Presidential candidate in 16 years to get a majority, and the first incumbent to win with coattails in 40 years, something rings true to the American people. Stay on the offense in war, get your judges confirmed, and keep working to lower the burden of government--that's the message.
2. New Media--not quite enough can possibly be said here. Given the monumental hurdles the MSM put up (more on that here and elsewhere in the RMA at later dates) for the President, it's nearly miraculous that W won. I would guess that, on a level playing field, Bush beats Kerry by close to ten points, maybe more. The only explanation is that talk radio, FoxNews, and--more importantly--the blogosphere were able to do enough to counterbalance that the contest ultimately came down to roughly the same red/blue split as last time around. The King (MSM) is Dead!! Long Live the King!!
LOSERS
1. Without belaboring the point right here, the mainstream media. What was up with the exit polls? you ask. Let's just call those the kitchen sink--one last, desperate attempt to swing the election. Much more on all this later.
2. McCain-Feingold. What a joke. If this is what an election looks like without the undue influence of the big money, then just open the damn thing up for a free-for-all and stop pretending. Seriously, has any major law with major Constitutional deficiencies been less effective at any point in the last 50 years? This one needs to be scrapped by the new Senate in the first 100 days.
3. (Local Interest Alert) The Colorado Republican Party. We managed to hold the state for the President and handily defeat THE REALY STUPID IDEA, but in return we lost the only two open statewide races, lost all five targeted State Senate races, and managed to lose a nine-seat majority in the State Assembly. Sure, all of this can probably be traced to the 527 group Forward Colorado, but by about September 1st we knew who those people were. The fact that the CO GOP was unable to mount an effective counter-attack is worrisome. On the other hand, Colorado has had years like this before, and we always seem to swing back the other way by the next election. Let's get busy mounting an agressive campaign right now. | |
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