Matthew Yglesias: Kerry 52, Bush 39

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Kerry 52, Bush 39

That's CNN's quick poll response. A clear win for John Kerry. The reason, I think, is that even though both sides won some rounds, Kerry won the important rounds, on health care and jobs. Especially on jobs. It's easy for the professional media to overlook the extent to which job overshadow talk about, say, the deficit since, by definition, media professionals are not unemployed. Nor do media professionals live in the areas of the country that are afflicted by job losses. But in Ohio, West Virginia, and elsewhere that stuff's a huge deal and all Bush said to people who are hurting is that they should go back to school. It's pretty insulting for a president (especially this president) to suggest that the reason folks are struggling is that they're too dumb.

October 13, 2004 | Permalink

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Comments

Apparently a lot of people have gotten a lot dumber since Bush took office.

Posted by: Social Scientist | Oct 13, 2004 11:24:00 PM

"the reason folks are struggling is that they're too dumb."

Perhaps not because they're too dumb but because their current marketable skills no longer give them a comparative advantage now that trade is freer. If you can't do it cheaper, do it better. If you can't do it better, do something else.

Posted by: WeSaferThemHealthier | Oct 13, 2004 11:27:48 PM

Which is why illegal immigration is so important. We need to cut down on those immigrants taking the fruit picking jobs that rightfully belong to longstanding mericans who bothered to retrain themselves at community college.

Posted by: Waffle | Oct 13, 2004 11:33:35 PM

He didn't say they should all go back to school. He said if only No Child Left Behind had been around when they were in high school, maybe they wouldn't be in this mess.

Posted by: iocaste | Oct 13, 2004 11:38:49 PM

In poll after poll the last 3 years, 39% is the proportion who would vote for Bush even if he nuked Alaska.

Good job, Mr. Kerry - you're batting 1.000 among the remaining rational Americans. Let's hope it's enough.

Posted by: Adam | Oct 13, 2004 11:42:07 PM

Check out this rigged online poll:

http://www.11alive.com/data/pollmentor/pollmentor.asp?sid=309

Bush 99.4%, Kerry 0.6%

only 133 votes, at least 25 DUers have already voted for Kerry

wtf?

DU says its rigged

Posted by: Erik | Oct 13, 2004 11:50:08 PM

Aren't there media professionals all over the country? I mean, not superstars like Jim Lehrer and Dan Rather, but every local station needs an anchorman and a few reporters. It's more concentrated in, say, New York and Washington, for instance, but it isn't like, say, investment banking which is almost all in Manhattan.

Posted by: Julian Elson | Oct 13, 2004 11:57:29 PM

Erik,

type in the URL; some polls filter based on the referring site, it appears.

Posted by: modus potus | Oct 14, 2004 12:01:05 AM

George Bush has simply nothing to say on his own. He speaks his master's(dick's) voice. Repeats the same sentences like a parrot and looked even more dumb tonight.

Posted by: Tarik | Oct 14, 2004 12:11:02 AM

What's with this bullshit gotcha that the factcheckers keep dropping on Kerry? If the private sector lost 1.6 million jobs over the last four years, and we added a million people to the government payroll, the private sector loss is by far the important part.

Posted by: Nick Simmonds | Oct 14, 2004 12:13:56 AM

Aren't there media professionals all over the country?

Yes, and most of them are very snazzily employed, comparatively.

I think Matt was talking about the punditocracy-types, and they're all in DC (or NYC) - the professional blabberers who I'm not watching right now and whom I will continue to not watch/listen to.

Posted by: jonnybutter | Oct 14, 2004 12:19:27 AM

Matt, the election is obviously in doubt. I hope Kerry wins. If the unthinkable happens and Bush prevails I see the Right in this country reacting very dangerously. We are a bitterly divided country. I think "sore winner" will be an entirely inadequate phrase to describe what the left will have to deal with. Many Republicans think it borders on treason to even challenge Bush for his office. I predict some very, very nasty triumphalism should Kerry lose. Maybe even some celebratory violence.

Posted by: STEVE DUNCAN | Oct 14, 2004 12:21:48 AM

I think Kerry kept mentioning the "1.6 million job loss" figure exactly because the "fact checkers" will continue to have to "correct" this by pointing out that 900,000 government jobs have been created -- which doesn't exactly enthuse the Bush base, does it? Clever Kerry!

Posted by: CathiefromCanada | Oct 14, 2004 12:22:58 AM

The irony is that Bush is the liberal and Kerry is the reactionary. Bush is in favor of educational reform, Kerry is in favor of the miserable reign of the Neanderthal teacher's unions, whose motto should be "stupidity, incompetence, and failure". Bush is in favor of reforming Social Security to keep it solvent for future generations. Kerry is in favor of keeping Social Security on its current course toward bankruptcy. Bush is in favor of keeping American medicine the best in world. Kerry wants to turn American medicine over to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Bush wants to spread freedom and democracy around the world. Kerry thinks that Muslims are too stupid and backward ever to become democratic.

Bush wants to allow third world countries to develop their economies by free trade. Kerry thinks that China or Pakistan's gain is America's loss.

I'm a liberal. I'm voting for Bush.

Posted by: Joe Willingham | Oct 14, 2004 12:24:37 AM

I can't believe you think Bush scored any points. The questions were all bad news and he had no answers. The best he ever did was to blame Kerry for the problems as if Bush wasn't the president.

This was a total knock out.

Posted by: r | Oct 14, 2004 12:25:02 AM

Bush wants to spread freedom and democracy around the world. Kerry thinks that Muslims are too stupid and backward ever to become democratic.

Bush wants to allow third world countries to develop their economies by free trade. Kerry thinks that China or Pakistan's gain is America's loss.

I'm a liberal. I'm voting for Bush.

Posted by: Joe Willingham | Oct 14, 2004 12:25:05 AM

By the way...
WHY WHY WHY do news sites (CNN,ABC,NBC,CBS,FAUX),
who presumably have real statisticians on their payroll, continue to put up ridiculous non-scientific web polls on their sites (which are incredibly easy to manipulate)? These online polls are about as scientific as daily horoscopes.

Posted by: jab | Oct 14, 2004 12:25:31 AM

I shouldn't leave out style points. At times, Bush looked like a smirking kid next to Kerry's gravitas. The right wing and GOP spin created for the post-debate period is that Bush connected more with people. I doubt this heavily.

Bush told some really bad jokes, made a lot of sudden and sort of jerky movements while speaking, and overall in some ways came across as a jerk. Kerry seems far more respectful and able to distance the man from the policy.

The right will probably love Bush tonight, because he catered to them. But the rest of America is going to see Kerry in a more favorable light. He speaks with conviction, and clearly distinguishes himself from Bush. The only difference I can see between Kerry and Clinton in 1992 is that Clinton more capably made a case for hope and change, but these are different times (we are at war), and, to be honest, I think Kerry explains issues and his (and his opponent's) position better even than Clinton (though not with the same personal touch).

We're going to hear a lot about 'Kerry the liberal' and so on, but I believe this is more setting the stage for the GOP opposition after their coming loss than anything else. The constant pandering to their own base signals to me that the Bush camp realizes that they have little chance of victory.

So, they are circling the wagons and focusing on ideological message for Congressional races, to increase turnout as much as possible (though they know that Democratic turnout will be much greater), and are preparing the rhetorical ground for their opposition to the Kerry presidency.

Posted by: Jimm | Oct 14, 2004 12:25:37 AM

Matt's OTM here, people. Imagine how an IT professional or a CPA -- both jobs requiring extensive training and education, and the latter also requiring passing a standardized test -- would hear dumbya's insistence that they need "to get an education" and be "re-trained" after their jobs have been shipped off to India.

That's right -- that's the sound of Dubya losing the election BIGTIME for this mistake.

Posted by: Eisbär | Oct 14, 2004 12:26:46 AM

It's not so much that the Bush argument about the availability of community colleges suggests the unemployed are dumb. Rather, the notion that a mid-forties plus, out of work person should have to go back to school whose tuition he can't afford and the time without earning anything he can't afford really ought to piss off the unemployed.

Posted by: JackD | Oct 14, 2004 12:29:50 AM

Ah, the Canuck beat me to it. Happy Frobisher day, btw. Of course team Kerry wants the factcheckers to have to explain the jobs number. That way that particular talking point gets into every article. And the explanation doesn't really help Bush at all, either.

Posted by: praktike | Oct 14, 2004 12:30:44 AM

i have never voted republican in my voting
life, and I may now prefer going into space.

these are the most boring politicians i have
ever seen.

haven't met them.

but I am at least old enough to have shaken
hands with RFK and Nelson Rockefeller.

at least they had substance.

who and what are we voting for?

Posted by: scott | Oct 14, 2004 12:30:54 AM

WHY WHY WHY do news sites (CNN,ABC,NBC,CBS,FAUX),
who presumably have real statisticians on their payroll, continue to put up ridiculous non-scientific web polls on their sites (which are incredibly easy to manipulate)?

Advertising revenue, I suppose. The left and the right send their armies to each site to freep the polls. Bingo, 500k hits just like that!

Posted by: Observer | Oct 14, 2004 12:35:19 AM

Thought Kerry won, but he still missed lots of opportunities. I guess it's just too much of a "target-rich environment."

But I REALLY wanted him to make the point that Bush's tax cuts aren't tax CUTS, they're tax DEFERRALS. When you are in deficit, those taxes still have to be paid someday--and guess who won't be paying them? Per Dubya, "The rich get lawyers and accountants so they don't pay, you do!"

Posted by: Dennis Doubleday | Oct 14, 2004 12:39:13 AM

I think one of the more interesting themes from tonights debate is the issue of political divisiveness. There was a specific question on divisiveness and Bush replied with a "who me divisive" spiel. Yet during the debate there were several times when Bush attacked both kerry and senator kennedy for being liberal and to the left. Mind you, it was senator kennedy who worked with bush on the legislation he touted as one of his bipartisan achievements. Kerry, on the other hand, stressed once in response to schieffer's question and once in his closing remarks that he is open to any good idea regardless of which side of the aisle it originated from.
Not wanting drag on, I think this shows an interesting contrast between the two, I just hope it wasn't too subtle.
I also wanted to add that I have enjoyed this blog quite a bit since discovering it from Delong's blog. It has been both informative and amusing.

Posted by: Ali | Oct 14, 2004 12:40:56 AM

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