September 23-29, 2004

slant

Still Up for Grabs

Rumors of Kerry's demise are greatly exaggerated.

by J.J. Balaban

Could everyone please stop panicking?

The election is 40 days away, but many Democrats are acting as if we've already lost. The fundamental truth is that John Kerry has an excellent chance of winning the election. Here's why:

1. The national polls are irrelevant. The national media breathlessly reports the national opinion polls, even though—as we saw last election when Al Gore got half a million more votes than George W. Bush—the totals are irrelevant. Bush got an undeniable "bounce" in the polls following the Republican National Convention. But while it helped his poll ratings in some swing states, the real movement was in states in which one candidate or the other was already prohibitively ahead. In other words, instead of winning Alabama by 15 percent, Bush may now win it by 20 percent. Similarly, instead of losing California by 20 percent, Bush may now only lose it by 10 percent. His movements in these states—and others of similar political leanings—are irrelevant to the ultimate outcome on Nov. 2. In any event, the most recent national polls show the race has tightened considerably during the past two weeks. One released by the Pew Center last week had Bush and Kerry tied at 46 percent while a Harris Interactive poll had Bush leading Kerry by just 1 percent among likely voters.

2. The confidence exuded by the Bush campaign is misleading. One of the things that the Bushies are best at is exuding confidence. A few days before the 2000 election, Bush visited California to try and trick people into believing that he was competitive there. When the ballots were counted, he was trounced by 12 percent. Bush supporters are doing everything they can to feed stories that they're unbeatable because they know that such stories are likely to depress Democratic turnout.

3. Kerry is actually doing pretty well in the "blue" states that Gore won in 2000. Gore won 20 states and Kerry is doing pretty well in most of them, including elector-rich California, New York and Illinois. Some of the blue states that were considered "swing states" earlier in the year, such as Michigan and Washington, are now expected to go for Kerry by a comfortable margin. While an occasional errant poll causes the media and some partisans to expand the list of swing states, there are actually only three blue states in which Kerry is struggling: Iowa, Wisconsin and New Mexico. All three were decided by fewer than 10,000 votes in 2000 and are likely to go to the wire this time as well.

I did not include Pennsylvania in this list. To be clear, the race here is very competitive and Kerry could lose it, but all of the polling I've seen for The Campaign Group's clients leads me to expect that Kerry will prevail. While a handful of polls conducted by newspapers or universities have shown the race to be a dead heat, these polls generally don't sufficiently account for how different parts of the state ultimately turn out voters on Election Day. All the signs are that Philadelphia will have a massive turnout of voters to turn out this president, giving Kerry a lead that—when combined with victories in Montgomery, Bucks and Delaware counties, which have voted Democratic in the last three presidential elections—will be insurmountable in the rest of the state.

4. Kerry is competitive in a handful of "red" states that Bush won four years ago. Because of population shifts and reapportionment, Kerry needs to win at least one of them if he is to become America's 44th president. Assuming that he carries all, or nearly all, of the states Gore won, a victory in either Ohio or Florida would propel Kerry to the White House. (The polls now show the race very competitive in both states.) Alternatively, Kerry would need to carry two or three of the following smaller states in which the polls have him within striking distance of Bush: New Hampshire, West Virginia, Nevada and Colorado.

To be clear, I'm not a wild-eyed optimist. Kerry's position eroded significantly in August and he is a narrow underdog.

But, if John F. Kerry avoids a major gaffe and fares well in the debates, he has a reasonably good chance of prevailing on Election Day. Unless Bush produces Osama bin Laden's corpse in mid-October. Then all bets are off.

J.J. Balaban is a Democratic political consultant based in Narberth. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (800 words), contact Brian Hickey, City Paper interim editor, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., Pa. 19106 or e-mail hickey@citypaper.net.