Bush can't win this election now. Kerry can only lose it

[kskiska]

A softly-softly long game will put a Democrat in the White House

Whoever said that misfortunes come in threes must have had George Bush in mind these past few days. First the US president falls off his mountain bike and grazes his face. Then Michael Moore's anti-Bush movie gets the top prize at the Cannes film festival. And now, to cap a lousy weekend, it looks as if Bush is going to lose the election in November.

Let me be clear. When I say Bush is going to lose, I don't and can't mean it in an absolutely-certain-to-lose, no-way-he-can-win, you-can-put-your-house-on-it sort of way. America's election is still more than five months away and the campaign has barely got out of second gear. Any number of factors, above all in Iraq in the coming weeks, could yet affect the outcome.

Nevertheless, the assumption on which politicians inside and outside America have operated, especially since September 11 2001, and which a large majority of American voters still endorse - that Bush will be re-elected for a second term on November 2 - is now no longer sustainable in the way that it once was. The facts have moved very decisively against it. That doesn't mean it won't happen. But it does mean that all those who have made their plans for the next few years on the basis that Bush will be president until 2008 - Tony Blair among them - need to get serious about the possibility of a John Kerry administration.

more…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1224063,00.html

[amber dog democrat]

1. But he might steal it.

He's done it before.

[InformedSource]

2. A very real possibility

[Vogon_Glory]

3. Versus The Wisdom Of Yogi Berra

Yogi Berra once said that "It ain't over 'til it's over." I don't think Democrats and progressives can take the beginning of the end of the George W. Bush administration's misrule as a probability until Dubya concedes the 2004 election or that the Dubya Bush administration will actually end until John F. Kerry is inaugurated as President of the United States in January, 2005. In the meantime, I think we'll have to campaign as if nothing's for granted.