No one seems to be writing opinion pieces quite the way I would, so I decided to do it myself.

The name? Taverns are places where one goes to discuss the interesting events and things in the world, so this is my tavern.

I will offer my views on politics, economics, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
I will occasionally publish the entire article from another journal for purposes of causing discussion.

 
What is the possibility Republicans will replace Bush in New York?

When reading the polls, we Democrats are a biased audience. Biased against Bush. So we see in the polls a clear downward trend for Bush as the election grows closer.

The GOP is at least equally biased ~for~ Bush. How do they read the polls?

They view the polls as being more indeterminate than clearly showing Bush has lost the election. Non-professionals are probably reading the results of the polls as much based on their prior bias as on the information content of the polls themselves. While we Democrats see them as trending downward, the Republicans seem to see them as merely "close" and the Republicans do have the geographic advantage in the Electoral College. The polls are not bad enough yet to cause the Bush supporters to give up hope.

Assuming that is correct, then barring some surprise event between now and the Republican convention, the Republicans will nominate Bush as already planned. Not to nominate Bush would be to forfeit the November Presidential election. They aren't going to do that.

But where the general polls can be read as downward for Bush, the polls on the effectiveness of the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush may be seen as having an effect in their favor. Those advertisements are the only positive thing Bush has going for him right now.

Since their decision comes down to the choice between capitulating the Presidency when they still see some hope of winning, or increasing the effort in the single area that seems to be going their way, they will increase the effort by becoming more and more nasty as the election gets closer.

The next three months are not going to be very pretty.


posted by Richard at 5:58 AM