Bush coffers grow as Democrats wage a costly election battle
Mind you our part of the world may not have being paying much attention the kick-off of the American presidential cycle is only gradually beginning to attract attention here. Maybe it's time to start paying attention at no time since the Second World War has the outcome of an American presidential election mattered so much to us here in Europe.
Having spent three years bitching about George W Bush, many in Europe are hoping for a repeat of what happened to his father. In early 1992 George Bush Senior had strong approval ratings on the back of his victory in the first Gulf War. So intimidating were Bush Senior's poll ratings that most of the leading Democrats decided not to contest for their party's nomination.
Then an unknown southern governor called Bill Clinton began to emerge from the Democratic pack and, with the US economy in trouble at the time, George Bush Senior began to slide. Most of Europe is hoping that like his father before him George W, far from getting an electoral bounce from the Iraq war, will actually be damaged by it and that that, together with his handling of the economy will make him, like his father before him, a one-term president.
Much of the initial media interest here in the United States presidential campaign has been focused on the struggle for significance between the seven remaining Democratic contenders in New Hampshire. However, the more significant fact this week was that no real Republican primary was required in New Hampshire. This is a key distinction between George Bush senior and George Bush junior. The dad was mauled from the right in the early primaries in 1992 by the firebrand Pat Buchanan. It took George the father time and money to recover and regain his party's nomination even though he was the sitting President. By comparison George the son is having a clear run.
Even if John Kerry emerges after next Tuesday's multiple primary as the clear-cut Democratic winner, he will be starting way behind in the general election itself. The lack of any competition within the Republican Party against George W Bush could prove to be the deciding factor in this campaign.
Bush will not actually be crowned candidate for the 2004 race until the Republican convention is held in New York in August, but his candidature has been a fait accompli for almost two years. In that time Bush, as well as enjoying the advantage of Presidential office, has had the time and space to prepare. While the Democratic contenders have been burning up money and energy traipsing the highways and by-ways of Iowa and New Hampshire, Bush and his team have had the space to garner the money, hone the ideas and prime the personnel to fund and staff a juggernaut of a campaign which could roll over the Democrat challenger whoever it is.
Over the last two years the President himself has been presented as a Commander in Chief focused entirely on the war against terror. However, his Vice President Dick Cheney has, by comparison, been focussed almost entirely it appears on a tour of Republican fund raising events. This is why the Bush campaign gathered more money last year for this year's election campaign than all the potential Democratic contenders put together. Cheney is the declared Vice Presidential candidate again for 2004 but this may only be a holding position. There is speculation in some American media that when August comes and Bush needs something newsworthy at his convention, the ailing Cheney may step aside and give Bush occasion to liven things up a bit by selecting a new running mate for his second term.
Coming from so far behind in the money stakes the Democratic contender may find it impossible to catch the sitting president. If George Bush is to be beaten then it will have to be by the issues rather than by the strength of the Democratic campaign.
ABOVE all else the Iraq war may prove the bleeding sore of the Bush re-election campaign. When they went to vote in their primaries the ears of Democrat and Independent voters in New Hampshire were ringing with reports that another six American soldiers had been killed in Iraq in a double bomb attack, that another car bomb had to be defused outside of coalition headquarters in Baghdad and that two CNN journalists were shot and killed by unknown attackers in the countryside. At the same time the former American "chief weapons hunter" in Iraq, David Kay, was telling media organisation that it is likely Saddam's Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. While Kay softened the blow by blaming bad intelligence, Bush refused to even entertain this as a notion. Although polls show that an increasing number of them are angry about the war in Iraq and the basis on which they were led into it, for now United States citizens remain loyal to their troops still at war and well disposed, for now, to their commander in chief. That may not hold if the United States continues to lose troops in Iraq at an average rate of one a day.
Bush's other vulnerability, like his father before him, is on the economy.
Although the United States economy is now growing again, there have been recorded job losses since Bush junior became president. Much of the policy competition between Bush and Gore in the 2000 Presidential campaign was about what to do with the large surpluses which were then projected for the United States federal budget. Gore wanted to spend it on social investments; Bush promised to give it back to voters in tax cuts. September 11, 2001, changed that scenario also. Expenditure on defence and home security had to increase, and at the same time the US economy suffered a slow down. Bush proceeded with large tax cuts anyhow and, instead of a surplus, the United States is now suffering a gaping deficit and, as a result, a declining dollar.
Bush might actually have benefited from the "retail politics" to which these early primaries expose candidates. In the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries (and now only in the Iowa and New Hampshire primary contests) presidential hopefuls actually meet real people. Once these primaries are over candidates spend the rest of the campaign touching down in airports, doing "tarmac press conferences". Local media saturation and sound bites for the national news networks become the priority. The "real people" who candidates actually meet in this wholesale phase of the campaign will be pre-screened to reflect appropriate mix of ethic and demographic requirements.
In this wholesale phase television advertising is what matters most and, as the warrior with the biggest war chest, George W Bush is the one most likely to win.
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