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September 16, 2004

The Couch Test

Kerry's in a putative dead heat with Bush, say the pundits.

But answering a phone poll is easy. Dragging yourself off the couch on a chilly November night to go stand in line at a polling station? That's hard.

You gotta want to be there.

Is Kerry going to pass the "drag yourself off the couch test?"

Maybe not.

This from the NYPost:

While the Fox News survey taken last week after the Republican convention shows Bush with a small lead over Kerry, the internal data indicates big shifts against the Democrat.

For example, Kerry is now seen unfavorably by a record 44 percent of the voters (his personal worst), giving him a slightly higher unfavorable ratio than Bush — whom 43 percent dislike. (Bush's edge comes from the fact that he gets 51 percent to rate him favorably, while Kerry has only a 46 percent favorable rating.)

But worse, the poll shows that Kerry must face a basic problem: His own voters don't like him very much.

Until they legalize telephone voting, the "registered voter" polls are of little value...

Posted by Mitch at September 16, 2004 07:03 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Ah, Mitch, you prove yet again that you don't understand the Democrats this year. We're lukewarm on Kerry. We *despise* George W. Bush. I'd crawl over broken glass to cast my vote this year--and I'm far, far, far from the only one.

Posted by: Jeff Fecke at September 16, 2004 10:14 AM

Mitch, keep that quote from Fecke. "Our candidate sucks, but yours is Satan."

Posted by: kb at September 16, 2004 10:47 AM

The technical name for this type of argumentation is tu quoque. I just remembered a great den Beste piece: http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2004/04/Thetruthis....shtml

Posted by: kb at September 16, 2004 10:50 AM

Transplanted Minnesotan living in Tucson. Tucson generally votes democratic, by a large percentage. My wife and I have both been noticing lately a huge number of Bush/Cheney 04 bumper stickers, and virtually no Kerry/Edwards bumper stickers. Goes to show: W's base is on board and excited, Kerry's is not. Kerry, in a real sense, has no natural base. Half are for the war, half against -- and he is both. Not much to excite anyone.
The Bush Knew/Bush Lied/Bushitler crowd will get off the couch. Who else will?
Another anecdote: I was talking to a local retiree the other night. He is a former printer/ad copy writer and we were laughing about how bad the forgeries are and how stupid/lying CBS is. He, like me, didn't vote for either Gore or Bush in '00 (both thought Gore was/is nuts, weren't impressed by W). He, like me, has been surprised and impressed by W, and will vote for him.
Not scientific, but as scientific as most polls.
Bush landslide.

Posted by: chris at September 16, 2004 11:24 AM

"Our candidate sucks, but yours is Satan."--okay, it's a little over the top, but not that far off.

Hey, folks, there's a reason the "moderate" is in my blog name. Don't think for a second that I believe John Kerry is the second coming of Abraham Lincoln. I am convinced, however, that GDub is a failed President, and that his policies have hurt our nation. I don't know whether Kerry can succeed or not--but frankly, if you're given the choice between hiring a new guy who seems kinda qualified, but might be bad, or keeping the guy on your staff who cost your company $1.2 billion--well, you give that guy his walking papers and roll the dice.

We've lost control of the Green Zone, folks. There were no WMDs in Iraq. George W. Bush is the first President since Hoover to preside over a net loss in jobs. 27 million people lack health coverage. Our deficit is climbing. And the recovery has been slow and shallow, and not strong enough even to bring job growth to a break-even pace. And Osama bin Laden is still at large.

These are not the hallmarks of a successful presidency. Now, you can argue that John Kerry might not be better--and you know what? He might not be. But he won't be significantly worse.

I promise you this: if the country is in as bad a shape in 2008 as it is now, I won't be voting to reelect John Kerry--because he will have failed. But given the state the country is in today, I would be irresponsible to cast my vote for Bush; he's a failure as a president, and the country needs a change.

Posted by: Jeff Fecke at September 16, 2004 11:26 AM

This election is about more than the last 4 years and more than the next 4 years. The current conflict is global in nature, and will take years to win.
Kerry won't be worse? Kerry's stated policies regarding the WoT/Iraq/Iran, etc. are already endangering US lives by emboldening the Iraqi opposition, and would make the WoT longer and more costly in terms of lives and money. He's already a failed president.
This is not exactly a time to 'roll the dice.'
On Lieberman, maybe.
On Kerry, no way.

Posted by: chris at September 16, 2004 12:13 PM

And Osama bin Laden is still at large.

If being buried beneath 20 tons of rock, with insects making off with what remains of your corpse is considered "being at large."

Posted by: Ryan at September 16, 2004 03:56 PM

Jeff,
What, are you angling for a job with the DFL? That was the most concentrated dose of pure Democrat talking point's I've seen this side of "Hesiod".

Bush is, by any objective standard, a successful president. He was dealt a very difficult hand, and he's done well. The economy is rebounding, but rebounding at a healthy clip.

Iraq is *largely* peaceful. In the Sunni Triangle it's obviously not - we have a *war* going on. Wars are ugly. Think it's bad now? Wait until we have, G*d forbid, a Kerry administration.

John Kerry is, however, a failed senator by any objective measure. *IF* the country needed a change, he would not be the one we needed.

Posted by: myatch at September 16, 2004 04:04 PM

"We've lost control of the Green Zone, folks."

You must mean Minneapolis. Tell us something we don't know.

"...I would be irresponsible to cast my vote for Bush..."

No, sir: you would be irresponsible to not exercise your right to vote, period.

Mr. Fecke, you can come over here and run the playbook of the DNC all you want to. The facts are that Mr. Kerry has not laid out a foundation of his policies other than he would do it differently that Pres. Bush. Okay. And that would be...how, exactly?

I have serious issues with some of Pres. Bush's spending policies, but make no mistake--I feel a lot safer knowing where he stands on national security and the WOT. That at least gives us a better chance of waking up tomorrow without a suitcase nuke or a vial of smallpox being set off.

Until the Democrats get somebody to the podium that can at least be an equal with our CIC in the realm of homeland security, then there's nothing to debate and it signals no chance of a Democrat becoming president at any point in the near term. For, if we are all dead, what good will it be that we all had health care?

As such, I can only agree to disagree with your choice to be leader of this great nation.

Posted by: Sarge at September 16, 2004 04:10 PM

Me and my wife, back in 2000, closed our eyes and swallowed our medicine and went to the polls and voted for Bush. We didn't like George W. Bush, we had voted for Allen Keyes in the primary. Bush seemed to us like a guy who was more left than right. Too political by far and not enough of a guy with a conscience to make tough stands on issues.

Suddenly 9/11 came. Suddenly me and my wife were glad that we had voted for Bush instead of not voting for Bush and helping Gore get elected. Suddenly we smiled that we had indeed made the right choice.

Since 9/11 our President has done many things that me and my wife get angry about. He is giving away everything he can. He is opening our borders so more illegals can come here and live off our tax dollars. We thought he would work to reform Social Security. We thought he would get rid of the Department of Education, instead he's done just the opposite. We thought he was a conservative and yet he spends like a liberal.

I promise you this, if it were not for the Terrorists of this world me and my wife would not be voting for George W. Bush this election cycle. But we have three children to think about. We want them to grow up in a world that we knew, that we had the chance to live in, a world of peace and prosperity. Our President, George W. Bush is going to protect us and our children from these terrorists. He is going to take the fight to them, wherever they hide in the world, instead of letting them come here to our country and kill our innocent children and destroy our economy.

For that, I love George W. Bush and for that, I will crawl over broken glass, bleed out every ounce of blood and with my dying breath cast my vote for George W. Bush.

Posted by: Eric at September 17, 2004 03:39 AM

So does *hatred* provoke people to get off their couches on the (inevitable) sleeting, snowy mess that election night always is, to vote for someone for whom they're only lukewarm, and who may have no chance of winning?

Will some (many) of them switch their vote to someone they're more ideologically attuned to, like a Nader or a...who is the Green candidate? Let's call him "EarthRabbit", it'll work. Where were we?

Oh, yeah. We'll see.

Posted by: mitch at September 17, 2004 07:51 AM

I just want to say that no president has inspired me as has GW Bush. I voted for Ford, Carter, Mondel, Dukakis, Clinton, Dole and President Bush. I have felt zero affection for our national leaders and actually disliked Reagan. (I know, forgive me, I love Reagan's memory now}

I believe that President Bush will be remembered as a great president. Like other "great" presidents he has faced a national crisis boldly. If he is successful, and democracy gets a foothold in the Middle East and if he can set the policies into place that will allow us to win the war on terror, he will be remembered as one of the great ones.

Kerry is political junky that has his finger up testing the wind. If you look at those presidents who are ranked poorly, they were men who tried to straddle both sides of the fence. Kerry has all the markings of a poor president. Kerry holds only one conviction, he is not Bush, and he expects this one characteristic to carry him to the White House.

I saw President Bush at a rally recently. I stood in line for two hours to get the tickets and two hours to get into the place and an additional two hours waiting for the president to arrive. My 13-year-old son was brought to tears saying, “Dad, I never saw you so happy”. I can tell you unashamedly that I love this president. I can’t explain it, not even understand it, but I hold a deep affection for this man. I trust him to do what is in the best interest of our country. I will do whatever I can to give him four more years.

Posted by: khrjr at September 17, 2004 09:48 PM
hi