We've already seen some gains on the polls due to Kerry's strong performance on Thursday night. But I think this is just Part 1 of what will soon unfold. What we're seeing now is the unraveling of Rove's grand strategy, and that unraveling will continue as the focus of the campaign turns to domestic issues. More below.
If Bush loses in November, I think the Republicans can look to their own convention as a big part of the problem. Clearly, on domestic side issues, the Bush record is extremely vulnerable. Jobs lost, rising health care costs, more uninsured, turning a surplus into record deficits, etc. We're demonstrably worse off now than we were four years ago.
BushCo made, though, a disastrous decision by not even attempting to defend this record. At the RNC, for example, they brought out all the moderate Repub heroes (McCain, Arnold, Rudy, Pataki, etc.), but instead of bolstering up Bush's domestic record, they focused on caricaturing Kerry as a flip-flopper unfit for the office. They believed that Kerry could be destroyed in a post-9/11 election by making people believe that Kerry did not have the character to be Commander-in-Chief. If people believed this, the campaign thought, they would ignore concerns over Bush's domestic record.
But they overplayed their hand. By portraying Kerry as a cartoon, they lowered the bar for him in the debate. On Thursady night the calm, cool, informed challenger people saw was pretty much the opposite of the image BushCo has been pushing.
Now, that people are comfortable with the idea of Kerry as CiC, they will pay attention to the domestic issues that typically drive presidential campaigns. With 4 weeks to go in the election, Bush has developed no defense of his record to this end. I find it interesting that KE has been talking about domestic issues after the debate while BC is still flogging the old theme.
While the polls taken after the debate have shown a solid Kerry bounce, I suspect that may be just the tip of the iceberg. Having passed the CiC threshold, KE appears well positioned to take the lead once attention returns to the domestic side.
This is not to suggest, BTW, that there's no chance of Bush winning. Far from it. The nation is closely divided, after all, and underestimating Rove would be a huge mistake. But it certainly looks like Bush's big strategy has been countered, and they'll need a Plan B. Soon.
With debates on domestic issues upcoming, it looks like the Reps will be on tough playing ground for a couple of weeks. I think they will need to come up with something good to regain the agenda.
Or they could just suppress the vote.