Keith Devens .com - Weblog: Politics of hate won't beat Bush

Thursday, December 4, 2003

Politics of hate won't beat Bush

Susan Estrich: Politics of hate won't beat Bush

The way to defeat Bush is not to advertise how much you hate him. Hard-core ideologues who hate Bush are not going to decide this election. They'll vote for the Democrat, as they do every four years, but there aren't enough of them to elect a Democrat. You need swing voters to do that. Hatred may motivate the left to contribute money, but it is hardly an effective talking point for public consumption if you want to win elections.

The people whose votes Democrats will need to defeat George Bush don't hate him. On a personal level, they like him. They need to be convinced not to vote for him, for reasons that have to do with the war, or special interests or the economy. "Hate Bush" headlines do just the opposite.

Permalink | 2 Comments | Tags: Opinions/Politics | id 4453

11:59 (utc-5)

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kevin lyda wrote:

if you're speaking about howard dean, howard dean doesn't run his campaign on hate. he runs it on hope. many pundits, particularly on the right, have commented that dean is angry. i guess they're not paying much attention in church:

st. augustine says, "hope has two daughters, anger and courage. they are both lovely."

∴ kevin lyda | 5-Dec-2003 11:02am est | #3452

I wasn't thinking of Dean. If the problem was specific to Dean, Estrich wouldn't have written the column. Though, now that you mention Dean, you reminded me of this from Drudge.

∴ Keith | 5-Dec-2003 6:10pm est | http://keithdevens.com/ | #3454

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