Bauer on Kerry's 'Non-Bounce' and Avoidance of Values-Related Issues
by Bill Fancher and Chad Groening
August 6, 2004
(AgapePress) - A conservative leader and former GOP presidential candidate says he is not surprised the John Kerry-John Edwards ticket received no noticeable "bounce" in the polls following the Democratic National Convention (DNC). And he thinks George W. Bush should go on the offensive and take advantage of the fact that the Democratic ticket doesn't want to deal with important family-values issues.Pro-family activist Gary Bauer, director of the Campaign for Working Families, believes it is up to the Bush campaign to point out to the American people where John Kerry stands on social issues that are important to so many Americans.
"I think it's absolutely imperative. They owe that to the American people," Bauer says. "This election is very important; it will determine the direction of our nation on many, many issues. Supreme Court appointees alone in the next four years will probably decide whether we ever get rid of abortion, whether marriage stays between a man and a woman, [and] whether we can ever display the Ten Commandments on public property."
According to Bauer, it could be to the president's advantage to make the electorate aware of the differences between the two parties on such issues. "I'm convinced if he does, he will be able to defeat Senator Kerry," he says. "But if he doesn't, then I think we could indeed be seeing a new president sworn in in January of next year."
Even without those differences being pointed out by the GOP, Bauer is convinced that many Americans already have doubts about a "President Kerry" would lead the country in the war on terrorism. The conservative activist says that is why the Democratic presidential ticket did not get the "bounce" in the polls that typically follow a party's national convention.
Kerry and Edwards not only did not get the big bounce they had hoped for, but a CNN/USA Today poll showed it was President Bush who received the post-convention bounce. The poll gave Bush a 50-to-46 lead -- one point better than before the DNC. "Clearly it's still a very close election," Bauer says, "but the Democrats have had the main event that they will have in this election cycle -- and it really didn't help them."
And Bauer believes the absence of that bounce in the polls must have resulted in some long faces at Democratic headquarters. "The folks over at the Democratic National Committee must really be in a bad mood," he says. "Even though I don't thing they expected a 15-point bounce, as some had suggested, I certainly think that they were hoping for an 8- to 10-point bounce."
It was the first time a Democratic nominee has failed to receive a post-convention bounce since George McGovern in 1972. Bauer notes some similarities between Kerry and the South Dakota Senator who received only 17 electoral votes that year. He says Kerry was more effective than McGovern in hiding his "far left-wing views" on defense, but believes that when the Massachusetts senator's record is exposed, "most Americans are going to have serious doubts about him."
