Bush's acceptance speech

Stephen Green.

John Kerry, the challenger, is running as an incumbent. He’s hoping you’ll vote based on his history (even if that history is 35 years in the past). He’s relying on endorsements from people he served with. He’s betting on the status quo, only better.

George W. Bush, the incumbent, revealed tonight that he’s running as a challenger. He wants to shake things up on the domestic front. He wants to fight the good fight abroad. He’s betting he can change the status quo, even though he’s responsible for some of it.

A challenger-as-incumbent is someone with nothing to offer. An incumbent-as-challenger is someone who, despite four years in office, has yet to go stale.

The Des Moines Register does a good job paraphrazing his speech at the beginnning, but then gives up and gives the last word to Kerry.



Hugh Hewitt

And the combination of that reliability with the generally repellant qualities of John Kerry may make the NOvember 2 Bush win even larger. Could Kerry have given a more off-key, bitter, and self-destructive speech than the one he delivered last night in Ohio? The collapse in Kerry's standing in his internal polling must be total to have triggered such a melt-down.