With less than a week to go, the presidential election islimping towards its inevitable conclusion. The polls are stillclose, and with states such as Hawaii and Arkansas still in play,as well as the traditional battlegrounds of Ohio and Florida, theelection is anyone’s guess.
I’ve personally enjoyed the election, though certainly notbecause my candidate, Michael Badnarik, will win. I have enjoyed itbecause I enjoy the raucous partisanship that all campaigns areheir to. That’s the nature of campaigns, something that isalso seen in sporting contests — the dichotomy between thosewho jump on bandwagons and those who are the long-time fans.
President George W. Bush — for some reason I can’tentirely fathom — seems to have the deepest support. Isuppose that’s because much of his base seems to believe thata victory for Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry will mark thepoint in which God finally turns his munificent bounty away fromour great nation and deny a deathless ticket to heaven.
Kerry, on the other hand, is a bandwagon candidate. The majorityof his supporters, I’m fairly sure, would have been muchhappier with U.S. House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, Democraticvice presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards, or Vermont GovernorHoward Dean occupying his place. A baseball analogy —appropriate due to the season — is people rooting against theYankees no matter who they’re playing against, solely due totheir hatred of said team.
Now, with only a week left, certain things can be said. Firstand foremost, the Democrats nominated the wrong man. In Dean theyhad a man who had both a solid record, as well as real honestpopular appeal. Nominating Kerry effectively crushed a movementthat had enough passion to literally wipe Bush off the electoralmap.
Even with the nomination of Kerry, the Democrats still had adecent chance to unseat the president. Unfortunately instead ofattacking Bush on where he was most vulnerable — the economyand Iraq — Kerry instead decided to rehash the Vietnam war.Unfortunately for Kerry, this strategy was fatally hampered by theSwift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that swung the momentum fromKerry to Bush.
Even up until the debates, the race was Kerry’s to lose.Swing voters in states such as Wisconsin and New Mexico don’twant to hear from an Ivy League professor, they want thereassurance of a football coach, a reassurance that Bushannunciates, if not clearly, then at least forcefully.
As you can guess by now, I believe Bush will be re-elected. Thisisn’t what I hope for. But I believe it will happen.
It’s ironic that Bush should be returned to office; mostlybecause he has failed in nearly every task he has set out to do.Still, we Americans, so long as we aren’t dealing withforeigners, tend to be forgiving to the congenitally fatuous.
I am proud of one thing, however, and that is the grit anddetermination of LSU’s student activists. Though I find yourchoice of candidates to be unfortunate, I still find that yourpassion and your energy commendable.
Next week we will find out whether I’m right or wrong.
If I’m wrong, I promise to admit exactly that.
If I’m right, I won’t brag, because, to quote thatgreat cinematic masterpiece, Alien vs Predator, whoever wins, welose.