Fighting The Narrative
Jonathan Chait has an interesting article in TNR in which he makes a good case that it's Kerry's to lose. He chalks it up to a better Democratic ground game and obvious Bush weakness.
But he says something at the end which I find kind of amusing:
The biggest mystery may be why most pundits haven't noted how bad things look for Bush right now. Maybe the reason is that he's built an aura of inevitability, starting with his 2000 victory and continuing through his legislative triumphs. The man just doesn't seem to lose very often. And his campaign firmly believes in projecting an air of confidence in the belief that it's self-fulfilling. (Remember Bush in late fall 2000, in an effort to show he was so confident that he could play for a landslide victory, devoting time and money to California?) The day before the 2000 election, a front-page headline in The Washington Times read, "Bush campaign says it's in the bag; Top strategist sees 320 votes." In retrospect, we now know that Bush's victory was not exactly inevitable. So maybe it's just hard to believe that Bush will lose, even if the data suggest he will.
Could Bush still win? Of course. I can think of three things that could intervene. First, Kerry is highly gaffe-prone. Roughly once a week he utters a statement--global test, terrorism as a nuisance--that plays right into his opponent's hands and forces him to explain himself. Any day, he could utter a gaffe big enough to change the dynamics of the campaign. Second, whenever the terrorism threat level rises, Bush's ratings go up. What are the odds we don't have an elevated threat between now and election day? Right--pretty slim. And third, a terrorist attack within the United States would probably cause a major rallying effect for Bush. On top of all that, there are limits to our predictive ability. Elections can't be forecast with perfect accuracy. It's possible that there are other important variables that we don't or can't know right now that could swing the race toward Bush. But what we do know says a lot, and what it says is that Kerry looks like a good bet to win.
With the exception of a terrorist attack, every single point that Chait makes is a result of a flaccid, ineffectual and in-the-tank news media.
Why does Bush have an "air of inevitability?" Why, it's because they have pretended in plain sight and the news media have either been too lazy or stupid to challenge it, despite the fact that in the paragraphs preceding this one, Chait just laid out a devastating case against Bush's electability. The fact that an incumbent wartime president is in this much trouble two weeks before the election is a powerful story that the media just can't be bothered to report. They are going to wake up on November 3rd scratching their heads and saying wtf because they aren't paying attention to what is really going on. And then they'll do it all again.
Furthermore, the idea that Kerry is "gaffe prone," at least in comparison to the most inarticulate president in the history of the United States, is ridiculous. It's not that Kerry is gaffe prone, it's that the media are addicted to snotty GOP talking points and the GOP is quite adept in knowing how to frame these little gaffes and scandals in ways that appeal to their puerile worldview. They play willingly into the GOP's hands by pimping stories they know very well are full of shit but thrill them in some way.
The terrorist alerts are a national joke and the mainstream media have done virtually no reporting on how this came to be. They behave as if these stupid color coded charts are some sort of third rail and as a result they have allowed the administration to manipulate the electorate over and over again. If they allow the administration to cry wolf again, they have no one to blame but themselves if it nobody pays attention and something horrible actually happens.
So, maybe it's true that it's Kerry's to lose. But he is forced to anticipate the moves of a very powerful and dishonest GOP machine (and likely controversial election result) and at the same time he has to battle the silliest and most ineffectual political media in the world in order to win. Talk about a challenge.
I think we'll do it anyway. But it's a testament to Kerry's skill as a politician, a great organization and more than half the country just getting sick and tired of this bullshit and coming out to vote. It really shouldn't be this hard.