Possibly fatal flaw in GOP formula for success: Little margin for error

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Washington Outlook
A possibly fatal flaw in GOP formula for success
Ronald Brownstein
October 22, 2006

The great risk in President Bush's political strategy has always been that it leaves him very little margin for error.

From the outset of his presidency, Bush has accepted division as the price of mobilization.

With a few exceptions, such as education and immigration policy, he has targeted his central initiatives — tax cuts, judicial appointments, the unilateral projection of U.S. power abroad — primarily at the priorities of conservatives while conceding little to interests outside his coalition.

In Congress and across the country, that ideologically polarizing agenda has helped Bush unify and excite Republicans. But it has come at the cost of antagonizing Democrats and straining his relations with independent voters.

This strategy has rested on the calculation that if Bush generates enough turnout on election day from Republicans and conservative-leaning independents, he can survive unease among moderate independents and intense opposition from Democrats....

***

All of this meant that even on Bush's best days, nearly half the country opposed him and his direction. That didn't leave him with much of a cushion for bad days, which have come in bunches during his second term....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-outlook22oct22,0,1746810.column?coll=la-home-nation

[MADem]

1. Yep, they can only cheat inside or just around the margins

Otherwise, it stinks too much. If they can keep it close, even if they are down by four or five points, they can CHEAT their way to victory.

This is NOT the point of the article, but it IS the point the GOP sticks by. They don't have to HAVE the majority, they just have to con enough people so it's close enough to STEAL.

If, however, the difference is twenty points, and the margin is four, then they've got to dig up sixteen points worth of dead people or DIEBOLD votes...and none of these can do any responses to exit polling, which will create a HUGE stink, not just a two or three point stink.

It benefits the GOP to have a closely divided country, it's the only way they can conquer. Get close, and steal the rest.

[AndyTiedye]

3. It Doesn't Even Have to be Close. They Can MAKE the Media SAY It's Close

And if it's Ohio, they can just make up whatever numbers they want,
no matter what the polls say, like they did last year.

[MADem]

4. Naaah, not this much. The media has stopped playing along to the

extent they used to. Without the cheerleading squad, and with the criticism getting through, even dumbass voters are engaging their own brains.

Only Faux is hanging on by their fingernails. We aren't talking single digits, the seven percent difference, we're talking double digit differences, with margins that aren't a fourth or even a fifth of the total difference.

It's WAY worse now. It will look a Saddam Hussein vote if they try it this time. The question is, what will happen "after" they try it, if they do?

[applegrove]

2. This article assumes an equal portion of Americans are Repuke.

I don't' believe that to be true. What the * tactics do is push a few more people over to the dark side under the guise of stopping abortion on demand (Bush hasn't lifted a finger on that) or some other "ticket". What is happening in this election cycle is something called REALITY. Where Americans will in the majority vote their real best self interest. A shitty and ineffectual and wasteful health care system isn't in the best interest of the average American.

When people are voting on reality..not the perception that they are better than those awful folk over there (liberals) then dems have a majority. Like they had in the two houses for such a long time. Most citizens of liberal democracies are simply liberal democrats (don't waste money but make sure things work in favour of a strong middle class). Except in the last two election cycles in the USA. But that was smoke and mirrors.

It isn't a flaw in * tactics that he will loose. It is simply that his wool no longer can be pulled over the eyes of all the people who voted for him in 2004 and 2000. And even then it wasn't a majority of votes he got in 2000.

Bush has been president simply by the use of wedge issues. Nothing else. Now people see through the wedges a bit more. And see what a mess occurs when leaders have no intension of running government...but simply want power.