The point about Texas being GWB's home is that his image as a "good ol' Texas boy" is entirely that -- an IMAGE. He knew his father had suffered politically because he was very "East coast" and afraid to get dirty. So GWB tried to counteract that before it could begin by capitalizing on his image as the "good ol' Texas boy," even though he's just as East coast as his father was.

This is one of my pet peeves about GWB: there are so many people who don't bother to look past the image! If they did, they'd find a guy who doesn't know anything about politics (except education, and there he's barking up the wrong tree because anybody who thinks vouchers are the solution to the education system's woes is out of touch), whose cabinet members do much of his work for him, who is never allowed to speak without a speech prepared because his aides are too afraid of what he'd say, a hypocrite, a guy who panders to individual groups (Hispanics, the Christian Right) who he has no intention of helping -- but he knows he needs their vote, a guy who claims he went to war but never did, etc. But so many people are afraid to look behind the image he and Karl Rove and Karen Hughes and whomever else had constructed for the media. They like his charisma and think that makes him a good president . . . when in reality, one of the only intelligent things that Bush has done in the presidency is made sure he's surrounded by people who ACTUALLY know what they're doing.

And for anybody who thinks that putting Condeleeza Rice in office means that GWB isn't discriminating against blacks and women . . . I've got an ocean-front condo in Oklahoma to sell you.

If this thread isn't going to get locked up, I have more relevant topics to move onto.

How are the Democrats going to overcome Bush? Right now, I don't see any moves in the right direction for that, and that could easily be their biggest downfall. I think that if the Dems get their act together they could easily defeat GWB. They need to start forming a solid image for the party now. They need to base their stance NOT on blaming Bush for his lies and mistakes -- although these need to be brought up, they don't need to be harped on -- but on making their own image playing off Bush's lies and mistakes: the Dems have always been the party that wanted to maximize the results for America as a whole, not just for individual citizens based on how much money the have. They need to play up the fact that they are the party that will look out for America's best interests, at home and abroad (leaving it understood that they are NOT the party that will go to war in order to keep oil cheap and allow their friends and those who donating to their campaign to have first dibs at the "reconstruction" of Iraq).

The Democrats have been, since post-9/11, too scared to go against Bush and the GOP because they're afraid that somebody will twist their words and make them sound anti-American, so all they've done is sit back and allowed the Republicans to take over. I'm afraid that the same thing is going to happen in the 2004 election -- that's why the Democrats need to come up with an image that shows why Democratic does not mean "anti-American." The Democrats need to start making a move to become as politically shrewd as the Republicans -- they need to see that politics today are just as much about marketing a product as they are about having sound ideas. They need to be able to manipulate the media as well as the GOP did during GWB's campaign. The Republicans have been paving the way for how the political scene will be run, and the Democrats are too scared to play things as dirty as the GOP because for some reason, they still think that politics are more about ideas than they are about images. If they don't catch up with the Republicans, that'll be their downfall.

I think which ever candiate survives and makes the economy and jobs the big issue like Clinton did in 92 they can pull off the win. No one thought he would have beat Bush but when their are alot of jobless people out there they have time to go vote.

Oops, wrong room. Sorry!

I agree, since this post I think they have made steps but need to do more to defeat Bush even though the polls have it virtually tied at the moment. I think it is so close because alot of bad things have happened to make look Bush like former insiders coming out and now the prison abuse thing. Kerry needs to do better getting his message out so he takes the lead over Bush and keeps it.