'Bush the Fool'

Naveen asks me to explain, having been in America for a month now, why Bush is supported by an overwhelming majority.

Well. The short answer to that is that Bush isn't supported by an overwhelming majority. A sliver is more like it. But that also means the support is there, and there are actually some good reasons why.

One (and this is the biggest reason): Bush's campaign line against his opponent ('Kerry the flip-flopper') is working exceedingly well. This is partly due to sheer marketing, but there's some truth to it and Kerry isn't helping. Kerry's congressional voting record isn't at all consistent... but I haven't seen any others', so maybe it's really very typical.

But there was no excuse for the first Presidential Debate two days ago. Bush was clearly standing for something that night, and it was something he'd always stood for, whereas the best that Kerry could manage was - I kind of agree with Bush, but I kind of don't.

For example, on Iraq, Kerry didn't have anything different to offer as a solution now, all he did was fault Bush on going to war 'without a plan to win the peace'. He made the situation worse by contradicting himself on every turn: he wants to 'reallocate' some of the 'overinflated' defence budget to schools, healthcare and social security, but he complained how the troops in Iraq don't have good equipment and by gum, he was going to remedy that! 'Iraq was a threat' and 'Saddam Hussein needed to be dealt with with force' but 'Iraq is not the focus of the war on terror, Afghanistan is', implying strongly that going into Iraq was a bad idea.

Bush is, of course, helped by the fact that he's had four years to create a personal brand... everyone already knows what he stands for. But it makes his 'flip flopper' line doubly effective when Kerry does flip-flop.

Two: Economic sense. Kerry doesn't have a plan for the economy. It's as simple as that. Kerry wants to cut the taxes for the middle class (who shoulder the largest chunk of the tax burden), and spend more on everything from defence to fighting drugs (a Republican track if there ever was one) to housing. This doesn't make sense at all. And cutting outsourcing? It would be safe to say that the middle class, Kerry's major support group, knows that (a) it would only hurt the economy and (b) it won't happen anyway.

Three: Overall Plan. Kerry right now stands against Bush, and that's about it. Bush, on the other hand, has his own original agenda. Who sounds like he's doing more work? And both parties are pretty centrist now anyway, so the major advantage that you would expect to have with a Democratic victory - personal freedom, stem cell research, access to marijuana - are not there. Kerry's only selling point is that he isn't Bush.

It isn't that Bush's supporters and apologists don't see what a schmuck he is... it's just that even he manages to outclass Kerry.