February 23, 2004

New Counter

Please Note our new Stylish Bush Countdown Counter the latest addition here at Craigorian Chant.

February 18, 2004

George Bush, Man of Peace

A great article in Slate here. Chatterbox makes the case that GWB can't fight any more wars. The best point:

He doesn't have the credibility. When President Bush justified military action in Iraq by stating that Saddam Hussein harbored chemical and biological weapons, nearly everyone believed him. Even people who opposed the war believed him! The United Nations assumed Iraq possessed stores of chemical and biological weapons; so had the Clinton administration. But no such weapons have turned up in significant quantities, making it all but certain that this prewar intelligence was incorrect. Thus Bush's first credibility problem: Next time, nobody will trust even the most fair-minded and dispassionate interpreters of intelligence data to weigh the danger accurately. Even though this may well mean the intelligence community will underestimate the danger, lest it repeat its Iraq mistake, the public will remember that these folks screwed it up last time.


I think that a great point the Kerry, or Edwards or Kerry-Edwards campaign can make is that they can restore the credibility of the US government. Regardless of why Bush was wrong about WMD he was wrong. If we dump Bush the US can just say that the liars/fakes/idiots are gone so you (The World, The US People) can trust us when the next crisis comes along.

February 14, 2004

Incumbent Presidents are hard to Beat?

The thing I keep hearing from pundits is "Incumbent Presidents are hard to Beat." Historical this is a rather questionable statement. After WWII , Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton were incumbents who won a second term. Bush I, Carter, and Ford all lost reelection (in Fords case election). Johson and Truman did not run for a second term. Leaving out Kennedy thats only 4 out of 9 winning a second term or about 44%. Now compare that to the 80-90% of members of congress that get reelected and "Bush is an incumbent" is not so overwhelming.

February 13, 2004

New New Election Theory

Bush is Crushed by 9 points. The Dems carry 400 electoral votes and win both the Dakotas just like Bartlet in West Wing. As the 2008 election nears pundits realize that a Republican hasn't won a popular vote for President in 20 years and begin to question the national viability of the Republican Party. Everyone grows confused because we now have two Presidents who can be referred to as JFK.

February 10, 2004

New Election Theory

I have a new election theory: There is a family somewhere in the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio, the husband wants Bush, the wife wants Kerry. This election will be close like T says. Whoever wins Ohio will win the electoral College and whoever wins the argument between my theoretical family will cast the swing vote in Ohio. Its all going to come down to them. By the way the (theoretical) Wife is winning but the (theorectical) Husban is getting tired of talking about WMD and is going to start bringing up tax cuts at dinner tonight.
More Dem Abroad Info

CCB Check the link here.

February 9, 2004

Indeed Kerry has momentum, but Bush is probably going to have over a $150,000,000 at his disposal for the general election. I've seen two poles from TIME and CNN. TIME had carry by 5 points and CNN had Bush by two. Its going to be close!

February 8, 2004

Kerry Wins Again

The other guys are in real trouble if they can't stop headlines like this.

February 7, 2004

UK Correspondent Alert!

Look at this.

Key Quote:

More than 500 voters packed the American Church in Paris for the vote to pick delegates to regional and world caucuses of Democrats abroad to be held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in late March.


CCB you got to get on this.

I think the Advocate does put (generally) pro-gay politicos on its cover from time to time. I got agree with the Senior Midwest reporter on the Kerry v. Bush outcome here. Does the Senior UK Reporter want to make the case for Dean? Note: MI and WA are voting today and Kerry could nearly double the number of delegates he has if he wins big.

February 6, 2004

Just posting to see if this works.

By the way, I saw Wes Clark on the cover of The Advocate at a groccery check out last weekend. Has any candidate ever done something like that before with that type of magazine? Never seen any politician do anything like that, but if it gets him votes its worth it I suppose. Although at this point, it looks like its Kerry v. Bush for November.

February 2, 2004

Anyone but George W. Bush

And now the lastest from Craigorian Chant Senior Midwest correspondent T-Money with the word on the street from the now key primary State of Missouri:


Anyone but George W. Bush.
That’s the Missouri pulse from the news pieces I’ve read. Gephardt's decision to drop out made it a little more difficult for many Missouri voters, particularly in St. Louis (Where ole Gephy is from). According to the local St. Louis paper:

A Research Missouri Poll, conducted for the Post-Dispatch and KMOV (Channel 4), polled 804 likely voters from Wednesday through Friday. It found that 19 percent of the people questioned about their plans for Tuesday's Democratic primary said they were still undecided.

"Since he (Gephardt) is not in the running, everybody is sitting back and saying: 'Show me what you're about, so I can make a decision,'" said Mary "One" Johnson, 47, a real estate agent and broker in St. Louis. "Everybody comes out and talks loud. I don't get excited by that. I like to find out what is really going on, because I take my vote seriously."

Beth Daubel, 38, said she wanted a president who could be a strong world leader; “Bush hasn't measured up”

The comforting thing about that is Clark, Dean, Edwards and Kerry could accomplish that goal (of beating Bush),” said Hunter Beckham, 33. "Hopefully, a couple of them will team up at the end of the game and take back the White House."

“It really kind of bothers me when I see them putting all that energy over there in Iraq tearing it down and building it back and then we got all the issues that we have here," said Cosandra Eddington, 48.


Few people have strong feeling for re-electing W. Much of this has to do with Bush’s foreign policy. A lot of them will most likely make up their minds on the way to the polling places. As in other states the candidates "electability factor” will probably hold more weight than other considerations. I guess Dems would rather just plain win, then have the right man win. They want W. out

Another tactic at least two of the candidates are trying is minority outreach. Kerry and Edwards have met with prominent black pastors. The Post Dispatch reported that Kerry met with18 members of the St. Louis Clergy Coalition, a predominantly African-American group of pastors whose endorsements carry a lot of weight in the black community. The meeting went well prompting the Rev. Earl Nance Jr., one of the Clergy’s members to say "I think he has all the makings of a winner in this thing, he connected with many of us."

Edwards received an endorsement from Rev. Emanuel Cleaver, a former Kansas City mayor. According to the St. Louis post dispatch, this type of out reach is important because while blacks are only 11% of Missouri's population, they make up 20 of Missouri’s Democratic vote. They’re tremendously devoted to the party in Missouri. The Missouri Primary is expect to have a fairly low turn out.

February 1, 2004

Call Them on It
Watched a bit of the political Sunday morning shows. It seems like everyone is now on the "no WMD" train. The line from the right/Bush defenders seems to be that Bush was the victum of bad intelligence from the CIA. If this is really the case why does George Tenat, head of the CIA still have a job? Kerry has already called for his head and I think the other Dems should follow up. Call the bluff. The headline will either be the "White House bows to political pressure" or "CIA fails President, keeps job"