I don’t usually say things like this, but I suspect that the Howard victory in Australia augurs well for Bush in November. CNN is predictably spinning the election as local: “In Australia, Iraq has by no means been a key election issue — despite a major clash of policies on the issue.” But I wonder. Many were worried about Howard’s reelection. Yet somehow he made it. People talk about their being “secret Bush supporters” out there. We shall see.
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I’m speechless at the augeries, and can only salute the goings-on down under (hmmm…much as I did in my 20s).
I’d just like to say that today is my birthday – Howard won, Afghanistan voted, and Jacques Derrida became Jacques Derri-dead.
The most wonderful gifts a boy could ask for!
The bookies are saying Bush lost the debate though – his odds lengthened from 1.5-ish yesterday to 1.7-ish today. (The longer the odds the lower the chance of winning.) Kerry on the other hand moved from around 2.6 to 2.3.
I am not knowledgeable about Australiaís voting patterns. Nonetheless, my gut instincts tell me that the war in Iraq was a determining factor. The liberals at CNN sense that the same will hold true for Americaís voters—and they are probably right. When push comes to shove, the majority gravitate toward a leader who refuses to wimp out against their nationís enemies. Thatís why I feel comfortable predicting that President Bush will win by at least a six point margin.
The Bush/Cheney must relegate domestic issues to the back burner while campaigning in the swing states. Their focus should be on Iraq and the war on terror. Also, it wouldnít hurt referring to the disturbing school plans recently found in Iraq. That should scare the hell out of the soccer moms.
I just visited Instapundit. He links to this morningís Rasmussen daily tracking poll which show President Bush up by four points!:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Presidential_Tracking_Poll.htm
Things are looking good. John Kerryís campaign may soon start to unravel.
From a post I made at CQ ó “We should take great encouragement from this result. Howard’s opponent Latham made Howard’s support for Bush and Iraq the cornerstone of his campaign. The media were uniformly in the tank for him. Celebrities lined up to support him with endorsements and benefits. The youth vote was trumpeted as rising up in his support.
And Latham never had the slightest idea how far out of the running he actually was. There’s even speculation he had no concession speech written.”
Just one word sums up Australia’s voting pattern “Bali”.They are not and never have been a people who cut and run the shameful manipulations of the left will have offended many there.”With the going down of the sun,we shall remember them” is still spoken in the Returned Servicemens League Clubs and they mean it.
As for Monsieur Kerry’s sister that will have been regarded as ” coming the raw prawn”
To follow on points made David and Richard: I thought it was striking that even Tim Blair was predicting a close race and a narrow loss for Howard. One can imagine how sentiment was running among left-leaning journalists. And yet the Liberal coalition just expanded its majority in Parliament, giving Howard a resounding victory in a campaign that was supposed to be a near run thing at best.
I agree with Richard that there are striking parallels with our campaign. Howard seems to have a similar style and appeal as Bush, and even as it repels the chattering classes, many other people genuinely like it. Almost uniformly, the MSM is predicting a tight race. The economy is strong, but Iraq and the WoT are key points of contention. I think the pundits and pollsters are offering a picture of our election that masks a lot of support for Bush, just as the Aussie equivalents obviously masked a lot of support for Howard. Given that, I have to agree with David that Bush will win a substantial victory.
Today is a day to celebrate. Australia did not buckle “under” the terrorist threats.
I chose to fight the war on terror in my own way. I have been submitting letters for publication in as many newspapers as possible, hoping to encourage people to fight back. I especially enjoy Roger’s blog, and his views. I hope he doesn’t mind me including a letter that I just sent to the Toronto Star concerning Canada’s armed forces, and how they relate to Australia, England and the U.S.
To The Toronto Star:
As an American and an occasional visitor to Canada, I have been concerned about the submarine accident and the resulting controversy. When the U.S. consisted of thirteen colonies, and our survival was in question, one of our country’s founders stated, “we must hang together, or we shall hang separately”. There was no question about who would do the hanging, and what was needed to prevent it from happening.
A single colony back in 1776 had virtually no chance of surviving without the help of the other twelve colonies. This is true today in a global sense. How can a single country excel in all fields of defense, when a single shortcoming (like a lack of anti-missle defense) makes all other defenses worthless? How do we then pick and choose the level of each defense? Do we pick an old fighter plane, an obsolete submarine, reduced boots on the ground? I think the best defense is based on clearly knowing who the enemy is.
My question to my Canadian friends is: “who is the enemy?”, and how do you protect yourself from the enemy? It is inconceivable that the U.S. would not immediately come to Canada’s aid if it were threatened. We have the same goals and aspirations, and we also have the same threats that are harming our world. We have a long history of valiantly resisting global threats, and a mutual respect for each other, regardless of what some of our minorities proclaim. Our mutual friends, England and Australia have been attacked by terrorists and by the time this is read, Australia will have made a decision to continue their fight, or cut and run. I hope they continue the fight because if they don’t, they will probably be attacked again.
If you agree that the terrorists will ultimately attack anyone that doesn’t agree with them, we are all eventual targets. If this is the enemy, the next step is how to best defend ourselves from this enemy. Let us share the burden. Don’t buy any obsolete submarines. There are many of the very best at your immediate disposal for our common cause. Let us join our efforts to stop the people that threaten to poison our water supplies, put weapons in shipping containers, or even attack our school children. The contribution that each of us makes can be far more effective when working together than if each of us try to do it alone. The result will be an effective defense that will not only protect both of us, but will also quell the hatred and fear that these evil people have spread throughout the world.
I ask my Canadian friends, please consider our long history of friendship. Please take this moment to re-evalutat the military needs of your country both for now and in the future. Let us work together to restore the historical partnership that was victorious in so many battles. I ask that you not malign your current leaders or ours, that have sometimes made decisions we do not agree with. Instead let us start with a clean slate and work together to strengthen a partnership that has lasted for over two hundred years.
Ray Elliott
Rapid City, South Dakota
‘
An experiment for anyone who wants to try it. Go over to Tim Blair’s site and follow the links to the opposition blogs. Look at the language, look at the issues.
Change the country name and candidate names and they are indistinguishable in tone, content and bile from our domestic lefty blogs. It’s as though the old “chattering classes” have been replaced with a new world wide whinging order…
I am so glad Howard won. It is good for Australia and for us and for the people of Iraq.
What you saw on CNN is going to be the MSM spin on the Australian election, now that Howard has not only won in convincing fashion but his coalition has increased its majority in the lower house of Australia’s parliament and, if I understand correctly – reports are still incomplete – has even taken control of that nation’s Senate. Namely, that it really has no relevance to what’s going on here. I am morally certain that if Howard had lost, you’d be seeing op-eds and blog posts all over the place claiming that it was a referendum on Bush and Bush lost, big time.
I think there are a couple of interesting parallels. First, there’s a very active LLL in Australia that’s been as vicious -if not more so – in its denunciations of Howard as the LLL is here. Judging from the blog posts today, the Australian LLL is in a state of despair; Margo Kingston’s column in the Sydney Morning Herald – she’s one of the best-known lefty journalists in Australia – is a classic of its kind. Second, the MSM in Australia appears to have been not just hard at work spinning the campaign in Latham’s favor, but also tweaking the polls or at least playing up polls which claimed that the race was a dead heat as late as yesterday; Tim Blair links to one such as an instructive case. This should be a salutary reminder to us to take the polls that have been coming out over the last ten days purporting to show Kerry surging with a grain of salt (as if we didn’t already have solid evidence that the latest polls have been oversampling Democrats in contrast to earlier polls which oversampled Republicans!)
“CNN is predictably spinning the election as local: “In Australia, Iraq has by no means been a key election issue — despite a major clash of policies on the issue.”
Can there be any question that CNN would have reported Iraq was THE key election issue, if Latham had won?
Here’s something we won’t see in a John Howard acceptance speech, but it’s nice to dream:
“The Australian people have reaffirmed the value and virtue of our continued support and contribution to the stabilization and democratization of Iraq. Australia remains a proud member of the ‘coalition of the bribed,’ and would have it no other way ……”
That would just about finish Cabana Boy’s own election chances, wouldn’t it?
So, Roger, what say you turn up one edge of your fedora brim for today in honor of the Australians…
It’s great to see that Howard won decisively, despite the polls. Bush right now has plenty of latitude to begin beating Kerry like a drum. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about very hard-hitting ads coming out after the debates are finally past us. I sort of fantasized a little and put this on my blog:
Attack Ad I’d Like to See
I’ve written a script for the kind of ad the Bush campaign out to be doing in the home stretch of this campaign. I couldn’t find a source for exact quotes from Kerry, so I’ll paraphrase. I don’t know whether all quotes are associated with usable video clips.
John Kerry Has a Plan
[Ad fades in to a montage of several clips of Kerry at the second debate repeating and repeating "I have a plan".]
NARRATOR : John Kerry has a plan for America.
JOHN KERRY : “I have a plan.”
NARRATOR : So far he has insulted our allies…
JOHN KERRY : “They are a coalition of the coerced and the bribed.”
NARRATOR : He has put our troops in harm’s way and then refused to support them…
JOHN KERRY : “I actually voted for the 87 billion, before I voted against it.”
NARRATOR : He has attacked the morale of our troops…
JOHN KERRY : “Invading Iraq was a colossal error.”
JOHN KERRY : “It is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
JOHN KERRY : “We could have removed Saddam without invading.”
NARRATOR : He has trivialized their work to bring freedom to Iraq…
JOHN KERRY : “There is no plan to win the peace.”
JOHN KERRY : “We are building firehouses in Baghdad, but not in America.”
JOHN KERRY : “The $200 billion could have been spent on health care and drugs for seniors here in America.”
NARRATOR : He has emboldened our terrorist enemy as they seek to scare us out of Iraq…
JOHN KERRY : “I will bring the troops home.”
JOHN KERRY : “We have replaced a dictator with a chaos.”
JOHN KERRY : “Iraq has distracted us from the real war on terror.”
[Final shot of Kerry at second debate. The best shot that can be found showing him staring into the camera, looking cadaverous, and saying slowly "I have a plan."]
NARRATOR : Can America and the world afford John Kerry’s plan?
“Ahm George Boosh, and ah ahproove this message.”
—-
Also, this entry a while back about Bush getting ready to take the gloves off.
http://cartagodelenda.blogspot.com/2004/10/are-gloves-finally-coming-off.html
A typo in the above. There is an “out” that is supposed to be an “ought”.
Matteo
That was great!
But I figured out today what Kerry’s plan is.
Only two words too!
Blame Bush!
Matteo, great ad. I’d love to see it!
We need to do something material to thank Australia.
How about a Buy Aussie campaign, sort of a “pro-cott”? Start stocking up on the Shiraz, folks…
Does anyone remember how Schwarzenegger’s win over Davis was supposed to spell doom for all incombents? At least according to the MSM. That was a load of horse manure too.
As someone who has to live directly with the consequences here I am also very happy with the result.
Iraq was probably less of an issue than Labor would have liked it to be though. While the decision to be involved probably did not have anything close to majority support (probably not as unpopular as in Great Britain though) any negative inpact it might have had on the poll was offset by three things: the recognition that things were worse under Saddam (even if he did not have WMD); Bali occured before Iraq so there was a recognition that further attacks such as at Jakarta embassy could not entirely been blamed on Iraq (ie we were already a target) and a recognition that even if we were wrong to be involved initially we have to finish the job we started. Overall the economy however was a far bigger issue.
My guess is that it will not have the slightest impact on the U.S. election but a change here would have been given significant spin to try and hurt Bush.
Now its up to you guys to do the right thing in a few weeks time (on Melbourne Cup Day in fact)!
I am very happy for the Australians, and think this is a small bonus for Bush.
Kerry’s sister went over there, and essentially campaigned against Howard (“You all are facing terrorist attacks since you supported Bush in Iraq”). So Australia is yet another US Ally that Kerry has insulted, and would have difficulty working with as President.
How effective will “Mr. Diplomacy”‘s pitch be, when he’s pissed off nearly all our allies?
I like that a lot, Matteo…thanks! I have an idea that if you’re old enough to recall the Everly Brothers you have a giant laff waiting for you at http://www.steynonline.com/index2.cfm?edit_id=64 …as of this moment, it remains up and needs a three-inch scroll-down, it’s their “Bird Dog” smart-assed into “Word Hog”. I’m still laffin’, laffin, laffin’.
WASHINGTON POST PUTS HOWARD ELECTION VICTORY ON FRONT PAGE!
Just kidding. It’s on page A34. The front page is reserved for the Afghanistan election “debacle” and some unhappy marines in Iraq.
Well, at least someone brought it out into the open. This was posted over at timblair.org in the Yes! thread…
There was a nice healthy streak of anti-semitism in the anti-Howard campaign; read the embarrassing Margo Kingston’s columns on the Sydney Morning Herald web page. Nice to see it get slapped down so decisively…
Interesting, and I wish I’d seen this post earlier. I’ve been on a business trip in Germany for the last 2 weeks and accidently watch CNN Europe every now and then. Before the Australian election they repeated quite often their news/opinion it was a referendum on the Iraq war. Listening to this I figured they were pretty sure Howard was going to lose. So I was surprised when he won, and now they’re saying it wasn’t a referendum at all? I’ll force myself to watch a bit tonight to see what they’re saying here.
It’s hard to watch CNN Europe because they really have to speak to their market, and boy does it show. Walter Rodgers (freshly returned from Baghdad) was just ecstatic after the first debate and was leading into his opinions with things like, “I don’t want to sound partisan but….” (cue laughter from the British anchor) followed by either a Bush putdown or praise for Kerry. It actually made me laugh it was so preposterous. I even spent some time searching CNN.com hoping to find transcripts, but no such luck.