Reasons why this is not 1992....

[vi5]

People keep pointing to poppy's war victory and his 90% approval rating as evidence that we can win in '04.

There are so many reasons why that is not applicable.

Bush 1 didn't fire up the base like his son does. The religious right was always skeptical of his father due to his ambivalence on pro-life issues and coming across as fairly secular, while they would each and every one fall on their swords for bush2. Father pragmatically raised taxes, thus angering libertarian and centrist conservatives for whom that is the main issue. Also, at the point where clinton won, a dem president had been an unproven commodity for 12 years. Clinton's 8 years are still a fairly current memory, and nothing fires up the base like invoking clinton to turn out their base.

All of this, plus a good old dose of post-9/11 fearmongering make this a whole different ballgame.

On edit: I'm also adding the fact that in 1992 right wing radio and talk shows were not as prevalent. So the "culture wars" played out on the stage of the repub convention with Buchanan and such, and that turned off a lot of independents. Now they can safely put that on the sidelines of the national stage, and let the rw radio and talk shows do the "culture wars" bidding to the base, while the national convention gets a "big tent" image.

I'm not saying it's throw-in-the-towel dire like a lot of folks on here, but I also don't think that pointint out poppys 90% approval rating and gulf 1 victory mean anything in this current day, age, and climate.

[creativelcro]

1. all good points. But then, why did he have 90% approval rates?

[vi5]

2. I"m not saying it's a black and white thing.....

I'm just saying that in general it's an apples and oranges situation so comparing the two might lead us into a false sense of security abou the coming year.

It was likely the post-war glow that led to the 90% approval.

Plus, Clinton made a decent enough case as to why changing would be good in terms of giving the other side a chance to see what they could do. So despite the 90% approval people felt they needed a change.

[NewGuy]

3. He had 90% fairly briefly...

right after gulf war one ended and it eroded fast thereafte for the reasons enumerated above. "It's the economy stupid!" is really what did in Bush 1. He had a recession ending that was about where this one is right now. If it had been a year later he might have survived the election even with his negatives with his base.

[vi5]

4. Exactly....even when the regular joe's soured on him...

normally the base would pick up that slack. But he was getting abandoned by the moderates without the safety net of the republican base.

[Freddie Stubbs]

5. Plus the fact that Perot isn't running