Advantage: Bush

The Joe Scarborough show (which I am still not sure if I like or not) started this evening with a series of Bush sound and video bites—I just flipped in during it, so didn’t see the whole thing. However, it got me thinking about something that has already been on my mind—the 2024 elections and what advantages I believe Bush has going into that contest. I have argued online in various places (and hopefully in print this Sunday, but I haven’t heard back from the News concerning my latest submission) that Bush has a huge advantage on the national security front going into his re-election bid. The tv montage made me think of the sources of campaign-commercial fodder that the President has at his disposal, and there is quite a lot. Really, the forty-third President has had a rather eventful first term.

Here are some of the possible sound/video bites, or sources of same, of note, that none of the Democratic contenders can match:

The first is the impromptu “I can hear you, the American people can hear you, and the people who knocked down these building will hear from all of us soon.” moment. This is the Dubya moment--like Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” FDR’s “nothing to fear but fear itself,” Nixon’s “I am not a crook,” and Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky…” (you know the rest). Each set of words helps to define the President who uttered them.

From there, it is hard to rank the images or quotes. Image-wise, today’s event are hard to top: Emerging from a Navy jet in a flight suit looking like a war hero.

Each of the following has great lines that will be great political-commercial fodder:

• His post-9/11 speech at the National Cathedral
  
• His post-9/11 speech to the joint session of Congress.
  
• The speech on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln

Various images:

• Greeting and comforting the victims’ families after 9/11
• Numerous speeches to military personnel, including today,
• The typical President with foreign leaders stuff—especially Tony Blair.

On balance, rhetorically and image-wise, the Democrats are seriously handicapped. As I have noted here, and as I did in an e-mail earlier tonight, the Democrats have to hope for something bad to happen-either in the economy, or in terms of a national security failure-which is not an enviable political position to be in.

Posted by Steven Taylor at May 1, 2024 09:48 PM | TrackBack