Revision on U.S. Election Prediction for 2000 -- 6 March 2000 ....Now shifting to Gore to beat Bush
| Tomorrow
is Super Tuesday and will be decisive in determining the two candidates.
so far, there is no reason to deviate from the prediction that it will
be a gore/bush race and that gore has a good chance of convincing voters
that bush is a lightweight who has no business being president. when i
wrote in december, i estimated that bush was more likeable on television
and that this would give him the odds in a close race.
Problem is that Gore is becoming a better campaigner
and is succeeding in reducing his negatives. bush is gaining negatives
and, while he is also improving as a campaigner, has been forced to take
right-wing positions that are alienating the voters he needs to win. he
is coming across as a captive of the religious right of his party -- the
kiss of death in a national campaign -- and this image will be very hard
to undo especially as the democrats run ads all fall reminding everyone
of the stands he took. his "smirk" on tv cuts against him and his polling
showed enough damage that he came out and "apologized" for his anti-catholic
association, an apology which seemed calculated. the attacks from McCain
are hurting him politically and financially (the war chest he was supposed
to have for the campaign has already been squandered). the worst Bradley
can say about Gore is that I don't like Bush walking around talking about Jesus, I detest the Bush family and I don't like the people they hang out with. By the way, they don't like my kind either. I don't need any more reasons to dislike him. if i personally am shifting toward gore this early on, the republicans have major problems coming down the road. To sum up, I now think that Gore is going to win
because Gore has improved and Bush has been damaged beyond what was expected.
that means continuity of policy. this is good for the stock market which
I think would react negatively to the Republican plan for tax cuts (fear
of deficits and higher interest rates); however i still stick with the
rest of my year-end predictions which call for a seasonal slump in the
market in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. in the middle east, for the short term,
clinton looks like less of a lame duck. this is good because it means that
the administration will still be around a year from now to shepherd money
through congress but meanwhile the best thing to do is get clinton, the
salesman, to get everyone to agree and make it look good. |