If the election were held today, President Bush would
win with 297 electoral votes, to 241 for Kerry. He would prevail in every state
he carried in 2000 except New Hampshire and would add Iowa, Wisconsin and New
Mexico, plus one vote in Maine, where a by-congressional-district proportional
voting law is in effect.
(A brief digression on New Hampshire. Kerry is
undoubtedly helped by the simple fact that he comes from neighboring Massachusetts,
but beyond that, New Hampshire, long the sole bastion of conservative politics
in New England, is changing. In recent decades, there has been a substantial migration
from the Bay State to the Granite State. One of the principal reasons for this
migration has been the benefit of living in a conservatively run, low-tax state
government. But the transplants, in an insane amnesiatic act, are now in the process
of Massachusetts-izing the politics of their new state, turning it gradually into
a carbon copy of everything they abandoned their homes to the south to get away
from. Go figure.)
Now, let us examine the first phrase of this article.
The election is not going to be held today. Between now and Thursday, October
28, I expect no changes in the electoral count; I think Bush will strengthen his
hold on those states that are still considered marginal by current polls, including
the four mentioned above as well as Ohio and Florida. He will also gain in close
states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Minnesota and Oregon, but probably
not quite enough to carry them, although there are important organizational efforts
underway in Michigan that could bring that state into the Bush fold. He will also
gain in the meaningless national popular vote.
There are two vastly important
reasons, however, why Bush still might lose the presidency. The first of these
involves what happens between October 28 and the dawn of Election Day, November
2. The second involves what happens on and after November 2.
Based on their
behavior in the two most recent close presidential elections, 1992 and 2000, we
can expect a Democratic dirty trick to materialize on or about the 28th. In 1992,
it was the utterly spurious, politically motivated announcement by Iran-Contra
Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh that he was going to indict former Defense Secretary
Cap Weinberger. This occurred on the Friday before the election and probably decided
it, as Clinton made strong gains over the weekend, while Walsh was darkly hinting
that President Bush the Elder himself might also face charges.
In 2000,
on the Thursday before the election, a Maine Democrat leaked the story about Bush
the Younger’s drunk driving arrest in that state in 1976, and that inconsequential,
24-year old incident turned an easy Bush victory into the nail-biter we all remember
so well.
You can bet the mortgage something similar will happen this year,
and the national news media will portray it all weekend as being more important
than 9/11.
Why don’t Republicans use the same tactics? Because instead
of being hyped, or even reported straight, such a move would be either ignored
by the Dan Rathers of the world, or portrayed as a despicable attempt by Bush
to sway the election.
The bad news is that the media are more determined
to play dirty this year than ever. The good news is that they have less credibility
than ever.
Far worse than last-minute dirty tricks of the Walsh indictment-drunk
driving sort are attempts by the Democrats to disrupt the vote itself, through
voter fraud and legal wrangling.
Democrat Party voter fraud is nothing
new. I’ve seen it myself since the 1960’s in Illinois, and in 2000 it was widespread.
In Wisconsin at least, it tipped the electoral vote to Gore, and in Missouri,
it cost John Ashbrook his Senate seat (which would have made Jeffords’ switch
meaningless (and meant that he probably wouldn’t even have done it.) The Republicans
have aggressive ballot security programs in place (which, of course, are being
portrayed in the media as attempts to intimidate voters) and they are going to
need them, particularly in Florida, but in virtually every battleground state.
Before it’s over, we may well be able to take a lesson from the Afghans
on how to conduct fair and honest elections
And when will it be over? That’s
where the legal wrangling phase comes in. Fraudulent registrations, provisional
ballots, “assisted” absentee voting and the fallout from 2000 (when, lets be clear
about this, it was Gore who refused to accept the results and took the election
to court) are building something resembling a perfect storm in which virtually
no realistic Bush margin is likely to be safe from the challenges of hard-core
partisan Democrat lawyers willing to end the 216-year history of deciding elections
at the polling places.
Old style vote fraud of the Lyndon Johnson/Richard
J. Daley sort was a blemish on the system, but it was, to put it in terms John
Kerry ought to understand, rather like prostitution and gambling, endemic but
not fatal. Even Richard Nixon understood this, choosing to accept defeat in 1960
rather than challenge manifest fraud Illinois and Texas (as even President Eisenhower
recommended) and throw the nation into the chaos of an uncertain outcome. And
now, we are at war.
But the Democrat Party has become Yippie-ized. It no
longer believes in such archaic concepts as the will of the people, and the decent
leaders in its ranks (Joe Lieberman comes to mind) have been marginalized in favor
of aging ex Yippie sympathizers like John Kerry, whose radicalism extends even
to the point that they would rather destroy the nation’s most sacred tradition
than accept the simple proposition that most Americans don’t want them in power.
E-Mail
Jay Bryant at jay.bryant2@theoptimate.com
©2004
Jay Bryant
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