Political Expectations

So the Republicans now have had their say in a mostly pointless pep rally. I say mostly pointless because at least we got to hear some entertaining hate mongering speeches. At the Democratic convention people didn't want to criticize too much. That made for some very boring speeches. Here we got some red meat and maybe even too much from person's such as Mr. Miller. But we must forgive him a little bit because he wanted to kick Chris Matthew's ass. Anyone willing to do that is okay in my book.

Now we go forward into the final 60 days of campaigning. Things will probably stay tied until the debates. I imagine Mr. Bush will get a small rise in the polls, but Mr. Kerry is now pushing out some new commercials so that might temper that along with any change in oil prices.

The only thing I will say after seeing Bush's speech is that I think that Mr. Kerry needs to get off the Vietnam kick and lay out his plans better. Bush may be a bit simplistic (and naive if he thinks he can implement half of what he promised) but he has laid out a somewhat clear idea of what he wants. I still haven't gotten a direct layout from Mr. Kerry. His great rebuttal to Mr. Bush's accusations last night was that Mr. Cheney deferred Vietnam service 5 times and that Bush was irresponsible in Iraq. Great, but what does that tell me about you?

I am slowly coming to the conclusion that unless Mr. Kerry fully defines his positions as to what he would actually do as president in the debates, he will lose. Something that the polls and pundants don't seem to mention is that Mr. Kerry probably needs to overachieve in some states because many of those state voters are over in Afghanistan and Iraq now. In a war, soldiers will often vote for their C-in-C unless they think things are going badly. I have seen no evidence of that so I think Mr. Bush will do well with soldiers. If Mr. Kerry is running neck and neck or just slightly ahead or behind Mr. Bush in a state like Florida, he may lose if the soldier returns come back 75% or better for Mr. Bush, which is not out of the realm of possibility. Polling doesn't necessarily account for that soldier vote and that could lead to false expectations on both sides.

I don't remember when the first debate is scheduled but it could be very telling as to how the flavor of the last month could go.