Campaign Theme: Bush's shuffle to the centre

[AmyStrange]

Campaign Theme: Bush's shuffle to the centre
Wed Jun 9, 6:05 PM ET
By Lionel Barber, US Managing Editor

FROM: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ft/20040609/bs_ft/1086445553136&cid=1106&ncid=1935
Karl Rove, President Bush (news - web sites)'s master strategist, is once said to have remarked that the 2004 election campaign would be about guns, gays and God.

His observation - whether apocryphal or not - sums up the conventional wisdom that the Republicans will use cultural "wedge issues" to win votes, particularly in the South.

But recent polls suggest this approach will not be enough to win the election. A Los Angeles Times poll reported this week that 58 per cent of Americans feel the country is on the wrong track. Most are concerned about the war in Iraq (news - web sites), the economy in general, unemployment, terrorism and rising oil prices. Ethics and moral decline ranks somewhere in the middle, according to a Gallup poll.

These numbers explain why Mr Bush has been shuffling toward the centre. The shift is most noticeable in foreign policy. Mr Bush still carries the mantle of "war president", but he has reached out to allies and the United Nations (news - web sites) over Iraq, where he now sits in a more "centrist" position favoured by Colin Powell (news - web sites), US secretary of state (and Senator John Kerry (news - web sites), his Democratic opponent)

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[w13rd0]

1. All his "move to the centre"...

...are like photo-ops, without content, purely for propaganda purposes, and transparent as hell with more than a cursory examination. I.e. more lies.

[Warpy]

2. Bush campaigned as a moderate in 2000

In fact, some wags said he sounded more like a Democrat than Gore did, with his talk of compassionate conservatism and a fair deal for all.

People bought it in 2000 because most people had simply not been told the truth about his record in Texas. Even Gore let him get away with blatant lies during those infamous "debates."

He now has a national record, and it is a bad one. People are not going to buy the same lie twice.

He'd better find a new shtik.

[RC]

3. All people have to do is look

at his Texas gubernatorial campaign vs. what he did after he got in - TWICE. The mess he made in Texas is there for all to see.