EDITORIAL for September 9, 2004


Identity fraud

The quadruple heart-bypass surgery performed last week on Bill Clinton is practically the best thing that could have happened to President George W. Bush. It will keep the popular ex-president waylaid and off the campaign trail for quite some time.

Mr. Clinton is enormously popular in America’s black communities, and if the presidential vote on Nov. 2 is as close as pollsters predict it will be, the black vote could put John Kerry over the top in crucial battleground states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. Election-eve, pump-up-the-voter rallies with Slick Willie usually do the trick in urban areas, but this year, Mr. Bush need not worry. Mr. Clinton likely will still be homebound on Election Day.

Despite the display of hypocrisy last week at the Republican National Coronation in New York City, despite record-high gasoline prices, a less-than-perfect economy, the worse job-loss record of any president since Herbert Hoover and a war of questionable motives, Mr. Bush has opened up a double-digit lead over Kerry in polls, and that’s not just a post-convention bounce.

Kerry has not connected with the ever-important swing voters. A clear, consistent view on the war on Iraq would help.

And then there’s the use of smoke and mirrors at the Republican convention. Mr. Bush’s use of past and potential terrorism to unify the Grand Old Party and the country, and the use of "moderate" Republicans in the spotlight at Madison Square Garden, may give him a second term. The president’s campaign strategists didn’t dare allow divisive issues like abortion or same-sex marriage to take center stage at the convention. And prime-time speeches by John Ashcroft or Rick Santorum? Forget about it. The party’s right wing did a disappearing act. Instead, you saw the kinder and gentler Arnold and Laura, and the not-so-kind, not-so-gentle Democrat from Georgia, Zell Miller.

It’s George W. Bush’s Republican Party — a big tent with a split personality — and you’re all invited. ••

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