Bush likely to win for the very reasons many here don’t like him

NOBODY is claiming victory yet. There is a long way to go in the US presidential campaign. Plenty of time for controversy, tremors in the economy, rumours of scandal and swings in the polls.

But it's looking good for the president. Two weeks ago, history was against him. Since 1956, none of the three presidents who trailed in a Gallup poll after February of a re-election year won a second term. And Bush was six points down in June.

Now the statistics are in his favour. The bounce from last week's Republican convention put him into an eleven-point lead in Time and Newsweek polls by Labour Day on Monday. Gallup has him seven points in front. Past elections suggest that the candidate leading on Labour Day nearly always wins the election.

You can't read too much into Bush's post-convention ratings. It's called a 'bounce' because it's temporary the result of a high profile gained during the party convention. But Bush has enjoyed such a remarkable run of well-planned good fortune that it's hard to see him losing the lead.

Predictions that the president would face a double-digit deficit in August never materialised. Kerry only got a marginal increase in support after his convention in July. Then the anti-Kerry ad campaign run by the Swift boat veterans put Bush into a narrow lead. And last week's Republican convention sent the president's ratings soaring.

From the choice of New York as a venue, to the impressive line-up of speakers Giuliani, Schwarzenegger, McCain, to the rip-roaring denunciation of Kerry by veteran Democrat Zell Miller, the Republicans left nothing to chance.

Miller's speech was derided by liberal commentators in the US and, of course, here because of the enormity of the accusation he made against his fellow Democrat. "Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending. I want Bush to decide."

It was demagoguery, yes, in so far as Kerry has now changed his position to reflect Bush's willingness to go it alone, if necessary, in the war on terror. But Miller's rocket was effective because people know the Democrats don't really support Kerry on this. What Democrat activists really believe is that Bush and Co have whipped up fear and paranoia among ordinary Americans. This, after all, is the theme that has made Michael Moore rich and sells so well to elements of the media here. Many people in Ireland listen with suspicion to Bush's rhetoric about security and the war on terror as though the threats didn't really exist. Of course, in a small island nation like ours we can rest fairly easily in the knowledge that international terrorism won't arrive here any time soon.

But in a spirit of global responsibility perhaps we should rethink our position in the light of last weekend's horror in Russia. Already, a group linked with Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the assault on the school in Beslan and there were several Arab terrorists among the 32 hostage-takers. This is just another reminder that there are people abroad in our world who will turn innocent children into human sacrifices to political gods. Take another worrying fact Iran, a country which has sponsored world terrorism, will have nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles within a year or two. Maybe US paranoia about national security isn't so ridiculous after all.

Global politics must surely be about creating a world where people can live in peace, secure from man-made terrors. Not since the nuclear age began have we faced a threat of such magnitude. Hindsight has shown that Soviet leaders were not madmen, and had no intention of destroying themselves in the name of world communism. Can we say the same of Islamic fundamentalism? Even if the US and its western allies helped to create the enemy (and they undoubtedly did), that enemy now exists and will not let up in any event.

AMERICAN voters, being pragmatists like Irish voters, now want to know which candidate will be most effective in securing their future. We can't blame them for paying such close attention to security. Especially since, being less in the firing line, we don't bother.

Political craftiness may not be an indicator of the ability to keep America safe, but if it was, the Americans would certainly be better off with Bush. Kerry has blundered all over the place since his campaign began. A few days ago he visited a town in the swing state of Ohio only to face the largest protest since the Democratic convention.

A 500-strong student group from Steubenville University were there to meet him protesting against his liberal views on abortion. The Kerry campaign went ahead and held a rally in a public park open to the public but with a crowd of 3,000 split in half with for and against the candidate. Good for free speech, yes. But what naïve campaigning. When a nine-year-old girl starts to chant 'we want Bush,' you know your team isn't doing its homework.

Contrast this with the discipline and slickness of the Republican campaign in lining up the likes of Giuliani and Schwarzenegger to endorse the Bush-Cheney campaign. Both of these come from the liberal side of the Republican house, but they shut up about abortion and homosexual marriage in order to emphasise points of agreement with Bush. CNN's Paul Begala grumbled that this was "political cross-dressing of a kind we haven't seen since J Edgar Hoover." But this cross-dressing shows why the Republican party is now more representative of America than the Democrats.

On abortion, Democratic politicians will always declare themselves to be pro-choice because (ironically) they have no choice. The Democrat establishment has moved further and further to the left on social issues and anti-war activism. Life has been made unbearable for dissenters.

Whereas pro-life Democrats like Boston mayor Ray Flynn were around to support Clinton in 1992, there are few such people now to help broaden Kerry's appeal.

The Republicans, on the other hand, have cornered the market in inclusivity.

Hence the defection of Zell Miller to Bush's side. There are others like him, members of congress and regional mayors who have banded together in 'Democrats for Bush' politicians who don't trust Kerry and his party on national security. There aren't so many Republicans queuing up to back Kerry.

Democrats might also reflect on this irony: they get huge political and financial support from liberal Hollywood celebrities at election time, yet only in the Republican party have former movie stars made the transition to political life.

It will be interesting to see how the Democrats react if Bush goes on to win the election. Will they conclude that they have moved too far to the left to be electable, or that the Kerry campaign was badly run, or will they decide that Kerry had a charisma problem.