http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1224063,00.htmlBush can't win this election now. Kerry can only lose it
A softly-softly long game will put a Democrat in the White House
Martin Kettle
Tuesday May 25, 2004
The Guardian
Whoever said that misfortunes come in threes must have had George Bush in mind these past few days. First the US president falls off his mountain bike and grazes his face. Then Michael Moore's anti-Bush movie gets the top prize at the Cannes film festival. And now, to cap a lousy weekend, it looks as if Bush is going to lose the election in November.
Let me be clear. When I say Bush is going to lose, I don't and can't mean it in an absolutely-certain-to-lose, no-way-he-can-win, you-can-put-your-house-on-it sort of way. America's election is still more than five months away and the campaign has barely got out of second gear. Any number of factors, above all in Iraq in the coming weeks, could yet affect the outcome.
Nevertheless, the assumption on which politicians inside and outside America have operated, especially since September 11 2001, and which a large majority of American voters still endorse - that Bush will be re-elected for a second term on November 2 - is now no longer sustainable in the way that it once was. The facts have moved very decisively against it. That doesn't mean it won't happen. But it does mean that all those who have made their plans for the next few years on the basis that Bush will be president until 2008 - Tony Blair among them - need to get serious about the possibility of a John Kerry administration.
The fundamental justification for saying this is the fact that the US opinion polls have gone into a new and different phase for Bush in the past month or so. It's not simply that Kerry has moved slightly ahead of him in the most recent polling - although he has, by between two and five points in most May surveys. It's that some of the broader trends in public opinion are making things significantly less favourable for Bush and more favourable for Kerry. <snip>
...it isn't smart to attack Bush too strongly now for fear of letting him play the patriotic card. <snip>
martin.kettle@guardian.co.uk
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