EDITOR’S NOTE: This article appears in the April 19, 2004, issue of National Review.
Punditry, like comedy, is all in the timing. You don’t want to be right too soon. This unworthy thought occurred to me when I came across a moldering old clip buried under a pile of bills and realized it was a column I’d written for the Daily Telegraph in London just over 18 months ago. They’d put together a special supplement on the first anniversary of 9/11 and asked me if I’d say a few words on the transformation of George W. Bush’s electoral fortunes. By the time I’d got ‘em on paper they’d turned rather gloomy: “On election day in November,” I wrote, referring to the 2002 midterms, “Bush will be right back where he was on September 10th 2001: the 50% President, his approval ratings in the fifties, his ‘negatives’ high, the half of the country that didn’t vote for him feeling no warmer toward him than if the day that ‘changed the world’ had never happened.”
Well, I was wrong. Two months later on Election Day 2002, the Republicans clawed back the Senate and made modest gains hither and yon. It wasn’t a landslide for the GOP, but it was a disaster for the Dems.
On the other hand, if you switch the date at the top of the column, it’s a pretty good statement of where we are right now. Yes, yes, I know the polls are meaningless, and subjecting the American people to another seven months of ponderous, self-regarding windbaggery isn’t likely to endear many folks to John Kerry. (Given the way his numbers rebounded when he took a week off in Sun Valley, I’d say his best shot at winning is to go to Bermuda till mid November.) In the end, even though everything’s within the margin of error, I’d say the margin of error broadly favors Bush. This November, he’ll win, and the math of the Electoral College will make it look like a solid win.
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