How Bush Could Lose Part I: General Comments

It currently looks like Bush will easily win in November but as we recently saw in Iowa, nothing in politics is a given, this far out. I do think that Bush could loose. I do not think it is likely, but I do think it possible, and these notes will detail how. Admittedly this is from the point of view of a conservative, but I have at least tried to write this so that it was not “A democratic could win by being a Republican.” Instead I tried to look at how democrats could play on their strengths and avoid there weakness while appealing to swing voters. I will leave it to you to decide how successful I was. But either way I will look forward to your comments.

Despite the rhetoric on the left, Bush has not governed as hard right conservative. To some extent he is making the same mistakes as his father of governing too much towards the center and thus has angered a lot of is base. Among conservatives it is very common to hear the assessment that he is good on the war on Terrorism, but….

Some recent issues that have concerned a lot of conservatives are his new immigration reform, the new prescription drug benefit, his signing of the Campaign Finance Reform, and just the general growth of domestic spending. Given that the over riding issue of the war on Terror and the recent growth in the economy, this does not present a major threat to him as it did to his father. In addition, the current President did not raise taxes which cause many of his base not to vote for his father. But it does represent a weakness, and a weakness that democrats could exploit.