Some Americans, myself included, argue that our presidential election campaigns run far too long. We argue that the candidates become repetitive, the debates are boring, the results are predictable.
How's that again? Predictable? Four years ago we listened to breathless reports from Florida announcing Al Gore was the president. Then George W. Bush was the president. Then Gore was the president. Ultimately, Bush was the president. Predictable, my eye.
This time around Howard Dean — remember him? — was predicted to be a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination, and a fellow named John Kerry was fading fast. Suddenly, after a primeval scream, Dean was political dead meat and Kerry was riding triumphantly onto every TV screen on his Harley-Davidson.
A few weeks ago, the pundits had Bush, after a long string of adversities, on the ropes and Kerry tap-dancing (well, hardly tap-dancing, but doing a decorous jig) like a president-designate.
Now, a week or so later, things seem to be looking up for Bush. If you listen to Republicans, or at least Republicans who want to see him back in the White House, if the election were to be held this week he'd be re-elected.
That, of course, is a big "if." Election day is months away, and there may be crises galore before it comes around.
Yet in Iraq, the most ominous cloud that hangs over Bush's re-election hopes, there are some gleams of promise. That may sound fanciful at a time when Baathist remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime and other terrorists are on a rampage of death and destruction against new Iraqi leaders and Westerners involved in the reconstruction of their country. But it is a rampage of desperation as the sands of time run swiftly out and the inevitability of sovereignty and a new era for Iraq looms at month's end.
The interim government is in place, and it is taking hold sooner than expected. U.S. advisers who have been "shadow ministers" hitherto are now working at the behest of Iraqi ministers. In some ministries the Americans have already left and returned home. Often the new ministers are acting with a feisty and unexpected forcefulness. Eschewing an image of American puppetry and putting an "Iraqi face" on the new administration and its moves in the direction of democracy is what enrages, and increases the desperation, of those who seek to strangle this democratic emergence at birth.
Meanwhile the United Nations is blessing the new political order in Iraq, the Dutch say they will keep their troops there, the South Koreans are sending 3,000 more troops, and if NATO has so far declined to take a role, Bush succeeded in establishing a new mood of congeniality with some hitherto querulous allies at the G8 conference in Sea Island, Ga.
Beyond all this, the president is coming off a week of national mourning for President Ronald Reagan, who, though dismissed by some critics during his presidency for lack of sophistication, warmongering and alienating allies, is now properly lauded for his sense of moral purpose, strong leadership and fierce defense of democracy. Though Bush may not have the same eloquence and camera-appeal, ironically he is charged by his critics with the same alleged flaws as Reagan and lauded by his supporters for the identical strengths.
In a week in which Kerry was eclipsed and relegated to newspaper and television oblivion, the media's eulogy for qualities of leadership that are presented as the cornerstone of Bush's campaign strategy could hardly have come amiss at the White House.
As Republicans see it, Kerry's campaign hinges on two principal issues, the economy and leadership. His criticism of Bush on the first is losing traction. If Iraq moves between now and election day to some semblance of stability, with prospects for democracy thereafter, the Bush team believes Kerry's ambition for installing his leadership in the White House will be similarly dashed.
But again, nothing is predictable.
John Hughes is editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret Morning News. He is a former editor of the Christian Science Monitor, which syndicates this column. E-mail: hughes@desnews.com.