The Intensity Gap--E. J. Dionne

[Maeve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62794-2004Oct25.html

According to Newsweek's poll, 37 percent of Kerry's voters felt this way, compared with only 27 percent of Bush's. Of the rest, 40 percent of Kerry supporters thought 2004 was more important than most other elections, while 35 percent of Bush's backers did.

As a political matter, this intensity gap suggests that even if Bush has been successful in mobilizing the Republican Party's political base, he has been even more successful in mobilizing Democrats.

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And this administration is desperately trying to have this campaign be about anything but the central purpose of democratic elections: to hold those in power accountable for what they have done. Bush does not want the election to be about his miscalculations in Iraq, his misleading statements before the war, his false predictions about the fiscal effect of his tax cuts. He wants to scare the country about terrorism and John Kerry. It is not an honorable approach to reelection. That is why moderate and independent voters are finding it so hard to support the president and why so many of Kerry sympathizers are so fervent in their commitment.