The invincible balloon

Why Putsch’s reelection isn’t that sure a thing

by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

07/06/03

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Politics/balloon.htm

The captive media has been making a big thing lately about Putsch’s popularity, and the huge amounts of money that he has gathered. To hear the babble from happy radio commentators and dispirited Democrats, Putsch’s reelection is a "sure thing" and the possibility of a liberal or moderate getting the Democratic nomination is dead in the water.

It’s a pervasive message, one repeated by hundreds of right wing radio talk show hosts and written by hundreds of right wing newspaper pundits and passed out among the vast right wing grapevine in the corporations and the churches.

The only problem is that it is sheer puffery.

Putsch’s election is not inevitable. In fact, the odds greatly favor his getting dumped.

Here’s why.

First, there’s the fact that George is an Electoral College freak. He won in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. He’s the fourth Electoral College freak in American history. (John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Benjamin Harrison were the other three.)

The first three all have something in common. They never got elected to a second term. Hayes didn’t even run again, and in a historical note that should be of interest to Al Gore, the other two lost four years later to the same individuals who were denied the White House by the electoral college the first time around. (More interesting footnotes: Grover Cleveland, who lost to Harrison in the electoral college, is the only man prior to FDR to be elected president by the people three times running; and Tilden lost to the Republican Hayes over three hotly contested electoral votes from a dubious election held in America’s own little banana republic, Florida).

Here’s another element that I wasn’t aware of until Los Angeles Times reporter Ed Stockly pointed it out this week: no President who has led America into any kind of major war has ever been elected to a full term following. When it comes to punting war leaders, I’m used to the British, who routinely kick out PMs that start or enter wars – Phoney Blair is quite doomed, old chap. It never occurred to me that it applied to American Presidents, too.

Of course, in some cases, the President in question simply up and died: FDR, Lincoln, McKinley. But most were rejected by the voters, or refused to run again: Madison, Polk, Wilson, Truman, Johnson and Bush. Bush came out of Gulf War I with far gaudier poll numbers than Putsch managed, and he didn’t have the embarrassment of an armed guerrilla insurrection killing several American soldiers every week while wounding dozens more.

The less popular the war, the more poorly the incumbent fares in the next election. And George’s numbers right now are not as promising as the spin machine presents. His approval rating is hovering around 60%, which is just barely above what it was before the invasion of Iraq, and not that far above his pre-9/11 numbers, but that’s only part of the story. Polls that ask "Does George W. Bush deserve reelection?" are coming back with only 40% of respondents saying that he does, with about 32% saying they WILL vote for someone else and the rest saying they will consider someone else. For a first term incumbent, those are shockingly weak numbers.

Also, consider this: CNN’s Wolf Blitzer has a "question of the day" polling on his web site, and it being Blitzer, his visitors tend to be more conservative than the general population. His site last week posed the question, "Will you vote for Bush in 2004?" With some 12,500 votes cast, the results were 13% yes, 87% no. Obviously, such a poll has no scientific validity, but for Wolfenblitzer, the results had to be a little disconcerting. I don’t imagine Karl Rove is real thrilled about them, either.

It’s clear that Putsch’s approval ratings are based more on misguided patriotism than anything else, and don’t translate into job security.

Then there’s the economy. Wall Street and the general corporate media are trying their best to pretend that we have a recovery going, knowing full well that a recovery three months before the election doesn’t help the incumbent (ask Pappy Bush) and so they are doing all they can to try convince the public before the fact, as it were. They think there will be a recovery, but they clearly aren’t sure it will work to their political advantage.

I don’t expect anyone to get any mileage out of noting that the tax cut for the rich failed to spur the economy; voters fell for that hokem in the 1980s, and they fell for it again in 2002. Working people vote Republican for much the same reasons that they buy lottery tickets. And, as with lottery tickets, it amounts to huge payoffs for a few select individuals, and a tax on stupidity for everyone else. People nevertheless keep right on buying lottery tickets and voting Republican.

The most obvious problem for George is that of unemployment. It’s the highest in nine years, and a clear sign to voters that the "recovery" is not as robust as the spinmeisters are claiming, and may not exist at all.

One element that exists well below the media radar is the growing discontent among the working poor. Minimum wage, a mere 60% of what it was in real dollars as recently as 1973, can barely keep one person living alone afloat. Median wage is reducing families by the tens of millions to deep debt, and ever worse and less rewarding working conditions as workers lose ever more ground. The Republican efforts to turn the screws in order to create more productivity is similar to a man who wants to see how close he can bring a match to a fuse before the fuse ignites. Polls, usually ignored by the mainstream press, about employee satisfaction and loyalty, show disturbing unrest.

Of course, one reason Republicans are apparently so confident and many others apprehensive is that these factors, all normally valid elements in a political campaign, may not pertain. Republicans are consolidating power in every way they can, from such well-noted methods as calling for extra redistricting in order to gerrymander (as occurred and is occurring yet again in Texas) to efforts to cram right wingers into every judicial niche that comes along, even going so far as to try to eliminate the filibuster in the senate so that every Republican judicial appointment can be rammed through on a 51-49 vote.

There are other, more subtle things. The Republicans are not only telling lobbyists – now the most powerful influence in government – that they had better not be supporting any Democrats if they want Republican favors – but they are going so far as to insist that lobbyists BE Republicans. (For an excellent analysis of this, and what it does to damage democracy in America, see Nicolas Confessore’s fine article in the Washington Monthly).

People are scared. Not are they scared by the naked power grabs and the systematic conversion of all power channels to Republican apparatus, but they are also scared by the increased secrecy (we still have no real investigation into the greatest crime in American history which killed 3,000 people), the growing contempt for due process (those unfortunates being held as accused terrorists are being told to confess their sins, or face the death penalty in a kangaroo court) and the complete corruption and subjugation of the voting process (not just the phony "reapportionments", the election theft in Florida, and the push for touch-screen voting that leaves no evidence of votes being tampered with, but the vast sums of money corporations are pouring in, one-sidedly. Since when are corporations Americans?).

That’s why there is such uncertainty. People aren’t sure if we’ll ever have a fair and open election again or not, or if there is really even a free and open country in existence any more.

God gave the neo-fascists of the Republican party two hands each to steal with. There are many more people in America who are not a part of that cabal. The Republicans, for all their power, wealth, and corruption, can only do so much to pre-determine the results of the next election.

Enough people, working together, can still defeat them. Their power is still more balloon than reality, and can still be popped.

Outside of the voice of the money, the voice of the people says that Putsch can be defeated in 2004.