From: wdstarr@athena.mit.edu (William December Starr)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections
Subject: Bush Aide Foresees Landslide -- for Bush
Summary: Political analysis article -- it ain't over till it's over
Date: 12 Oct 92 03:46:53 GMT
Organization: Northeastern Law, Class of '93


        "If this election is Bush versus 'Not Bush,' then we lose,"
        one Bush associate said.  "If this election is Bush versus
        Clinton, then we win.  We have to keep the focus on Clinton."

Russ Nelson said:

> "Four more beers", they were chanting at the Republican National
> Convention.  That's about all Bush is going to get.

and in article <16041@umd5.umd.edu>, gurd@wam.umd.edu said:

> Actually they are going to get nothing more than FOUR MORE MONTHS!!!
> Also don't be surpised to see the Democrats pick up 2-3 seats in the
> Senate, and retain their comfortable margin in the House.  The
> electorate is going to clean house alright, they are going to clean
> the White House out, and "Vote for a Change."

Just to bring home the point that it ain't over till it's over (thank
you Yogi Berra, wherever you are), here's a front-page article from
the Saturday, October 10, 1992 Boston Globe.  I realize that this
guy's viewpoint may be coming from somewhere out in the Oort Cloud (he
_is_ described as "a disciple of John Sununu, former White House chief
of Staff," after all), and/or he may just be trying to pull off the
old self-fulfilling prophesy stunt... in any event, though, I think it
makes interesting reading:

Bush aide looks at map and sees landslide
-----------------------------------------

           by Michael Kranish, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- David Carney, the Bush campaign's national field
director, sees the map of the United States as an electoral jigsaw
puzzle.  At a time when Democrats are becoming almost cocky in their
view that Gov. Bill Clinton will win, Carney looks at his map and sees
nothing but good news.

Carney sees all the needed states -- and more -- falling into place,
resulting in nothing less than a Bush blowout victory.

And how will that occur?  Carney, along with several other Republical
operatives interviewed for this story, gave the same answer: The
"drip, drip, drip" of questions about Clinton's character, some of
which are being raised by Bush himself, will eventually wash Clinton
over the edge.

"It will be a landslide," Carney said, savoring the image.

And, other Republicans said, it will be classic in its negativity.
The Bush campaign believes that questions about Clinton's lack of
military service and participation in demonstrations against the
Vietnam War will make the difference in key states ranging from
Georgia to Michigan.

Simply put, the Republicans in their strategy are assuming that Bush
will win almost every state in the South and the Rocky Mountains,
putting together a base of 180 electoral votes.  The remaining needed
90 votes would then be culled from 12 key battleground states, most of
them in the Midwest and nearly all of them in areas where Bush now
trails Clinton by a significant margin in the pols.  Campaign
officials privately acknowledge they have written off the largest
electoral prize, California.

Under this theory, Bush needs only one of every three electoral votes
in the 12 battleground states to win.  The needed votes might come
from Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Carney
said.

"It's pretty simple," Carney, a disciple of John Sununu, former White
House chief of Staff, said in an interview.  Still, he quickly added,
"We don't have any gift electoral votes this time around.  We have to
earn all of them."

If the election were held now, according to separate polls in all 50
states, Clinton would get 403 electoral votes and Bush would get 110,
according to a compilation by the political newsletter Hotline.  A
candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win.

So how can a Clinton landslide be turned into the Bush landslide that
Carney foresees?  The current polls show that Perot takes about 10
percent of the vote, and another 12 percent is undecided.  That leaves
about one-fourth of the electorate up for grabs, with perhaps another
quarter of the electorate "soft" in support of a candidate and
potentially changeable.

Even Democratic strategists concede that many Clinton supporters are
lukewarm about the Arkansas governor and mostly anti-Bush.  Thus, the
Bush assault, combined with the upcoming debates and new advertising,
is aimed at this large chunk of voters who could be swayed to vote for
Bush.

That is the theory, anyway.  But the problem for Bush is that the
timetable is running short.  A Bush associate privately acknowledged
that the Bush campaign is two weeks behind schedule: The campaign had
hoped Bush would have caught up with Clinton by now, but the President
still trails in most polls by 10 percent or more.

As a result, they say Bush hopes to use his new attack on Clinton's
Vietnam-era record and the upcoming debates to break out of his stall
in the polls.

"If this election is Bush versus 'Not Bush,' then we lose," one Bush
associate said.  "If this election is Bush versus Clinton, then we
win.  We have to keep the focus on Clinton."

That goes a long way toward explaining why Bush has in the past few
days begun raising new questions about Clinton's patriotism for
avoiding military service and organizing an anti-Vietnam demonstration
while in England.  The strategy keeps Clinton on the defensive.

The Bush strategy appeared in high form yesterday [Friday, October
9th] on ABC-TV's "Good Morning America."  Bush was supposed to be
interviewed only about jobs and the economy, which critics say is the
president's weakest political ground.  But Bush instead spent most of
his time attacking Clinton on the Vietnam issue, leaving only a few
questions about the economy.  Thus, a blunt admission by Bush, that
Clinton is correct to assert that Bush failed to create 29 million of
the 30 million jobs that he promised, was buried in the invective
about Vietnam.

A Republican pollster, Glen Bolger, who said Bush's dilemma is so
severe that he would have to stage the "greatest political comeback of
all time" to win, said the president has no choice but to continue to
go negative.

"That's his only option," Bolger said.  "There are no medals in
presidential races for coming in second and having run a 'good'
campaign."

Not everyone likes the increasingly negative tone sounded by Bush
himself.  One Bush associate, comparing Bush's latest barrage with the
1988 Republican focus on flag factories and the Pledge of Allegiance,
was so downcast about the latest turn in the campaign that he said,
"This is going to backfire on us... we deserve to lose."

But that view is not held by most officials of the Bush campaign, many
of whom are joyful about Bush's newfound vigor for the fight.

While most Bush aides interviewed this week acknowledged that things
look bleak, several said there are three main reasons to be hopeful:
Bush is just beginning to get personally involved in assailing
Clinton; the Bush campaign has only just begun to launch its
advertising campaign; and the presidential and vice presidential
debates may prompt many voters to reconsider who they will support.

Bush campaign officials note that in 1988, 18 percent of the voters
mad up their minds in the 48 hours before election day.  At this
point, the Bush campaign believes that nearly half the electorate is
undecided or soft in its preference, meaning that many votes can be
swayed in the final days of the campaign.

One of the key unknown factors in the last month will be the role of
Ross Perot.

Some Bush campaign officials are convinced Perot hurts Clinton, but
others say Perot does Bush more harm, noting that Perot is doing well
mainly in states that Bush should win easily.

While Perot is stuck at around 10 percent in national polls, less
attention has been paid to the fact that he is drawing enough support
to make a difference in a number of states.  Perot, for example, is
polling 23 percent in Wyoming, 18 percent in Alaska and Oklahoma, and
17 percent in Arizona.  The Bush campaign worries that Perot could tip
the balance in Clinton's favor in such states, not to mention the
larger electoral prizes of Florida and Texas that Bush needs to win.

At the same time, Bush's associates said they are still concerned
about a much-discussed nightmare scenario in which Perot withdraws
from the race days before the election and endorses Clinton.  If that
happens, a Bush associate said, "It's hard to see how we win."

-- William December Starr <wdstarr@athena.mit.edu>
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