Despite what the world may want, Bush appears poised for re-election say US political analysts, reports Yasmine El-Rashidi Amidst the raucous of international outrage with the current US administration and its lethal foreign policies towards the Middle East, President George W Bush is somehow retaining his grasp on the upcoming elections, with polls showing him up in the running with over 50 per cent of his nation's support. Despite alternate opines earlier this year, the global discontent, it has become apparent, has had little pushing power in the final stretch to the November elections. Global discourse will not sway the vote, nor will the situation in Iraq. Alan Lichtman, presidential historian and political science professor at the American University in Washington DC, has accurately predicted every presidential election since 1984 with his system of "13 keys to the White House". He says Bush will undoubtedly clinch another term in office. "What the public must remember," he told Al-Ahram Weekly last week, during a conference on "US Presidential Elections" at the American University in Cairo, "is that elections are not decided primarily by what happens day-to-day on the campaign. It's not the ads, it's not the debates, it's not the speeches, it's not the campaign events that turn elections. Rather, the elections are decided by the big picture, by the fundamentals of how well the party controlling the presidency have governed the country over the past few years. The keys look at the American economy, they look at domestic policies, they look at how peaceful the country is." From a low point immediately following the strike on Iraq, and again a nose-dive upon the unravelling of the Abu Ghraib prison scandals, the positive turnaround in the US economy has won back Bush his popularity. "Unless something fundamental changes in the coming months, George Bush is going to be the winner," Lichtman said. "He has a mixed record in foreign policy, a mixed record on the economy, but the country is generally peaceful, he's not against a charismatic challenger, there's no major third party against him, he's the sitting president and unchallenged within his own party. So if you piece it all together the prediction is that Bush will get four more years in office -- which is something I announced a year and a half ago, in April 2003." The crisis in Iraq, Lichtman believes, has never been as prominent an electoral issue as the world would like to believe. "Americans care about issues close to home," he explains. "Of course the crisis in Iraq is a factor, but that alone is not enough to change the polls. Foreign policy is only one aspect, and within that bracket Bush gets points for having captured Saddam, and as well for driving the Taliban out of Afghanistan." The margin of difference between the two candidates and their policies on Iraq is perhaps enough to give Bush the edge. Bush may have been the instigator of the crisis, but at least his people know him. And of course, regardless of who earns the key to the White House, the US will remain in Iraq. "Americans like he who they are familiar with," explains Glen Johnson, executive director of the Center for American Studies and Research at the American University in Cairo. "They know Bush, they don't know Kerry. And so far he has been unable to convince them. Yes they would like a candidate with more wisdom than that which Bush has displayed, but he has shown a toughness. At the end of the day the US population want a candidate who will directly address their immediate needs." Bush has made that a clear priority -- or at least is playing on it to win votes at home. Following debate number one on issues of US foreign policy, Bush spoke at a global referendum in Pittsburgh about how what he cares about, is what his people care about; implying that he doesn't care "about the rest of the world". What becomes of the state of global affairs seem of decreasing concern, debate number one not so much as touching as the Arab- Israeli conflict -- a fact shocking to analysts and viewers alike. "I was amazed the debate didn't address it," Lichtman said of the conflict. "That's not only important to the Arabs and Israelis, but that's also very important in the United States. Many American president, from Harry Truman back in the 1940s, to Bill Clinton, very seriously addressed that issue. It hasn't been that much of an issue, and it's very surprising that Kerry didn't bring it up and make more of an issue about it." But Americans perhaps do not give much weight to an issue so seemingly far from their backyards and beyond their borders. That reality is underlined in the recent, boggling, poll released by renowned pollsters Zogby International for the Arab-American Institute, who released figures last month indicating Bush gaining Arab-American votes in four key states (Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida). The poll shows Kerry's support to have dropped from 54 per cent in July to 49 per cent last month. In July 24.5 per cent of Arab-American voters said they would vote for Bush. Now 31 per cent said he deserves to be re-elected. The shift comes from the perceived lack of concern from Kerry towards the Arab-American community. While Bush mentioned the community in his 2000 campaign, Kerry has failed to do so in similar manner this year. "The apparent failure of the Kerry campaign to outreach to Arab-American voters and to define their candidate and his positions has resulted in Kerry's inability to gain ground with a constituency which, as the polling data clearly demonstrates, was clearly ready for change," Zogby wrote in his report. "While Kerry may have secured as much as two-thirds of the Arab-American vote, he remains at less than one-half." The figures come as surprising to writers, thinkers and journalists in the Middle East, for whom the thought of casting a vote in favour of he who is perceived as the greatest evil to the region, is an unthinkable of blasphemous proportions. "Part of the problem is that no one is willing to step inside the other's shoes. Americans much try to understand the discontent, and those here must try to understand what it means to be an American, living in the United States, with certain concerns and immediate needs," Johnson told the Weekly. The candidates are too close in their policies to offer voters starkly different options and a choice. To the majority of voters, who make up the American middle class, in Ohio, in Texas, in the South and Mid-west, "domestic" is what counts -- jobs, education, healthcare and the security of their neighbourhoods. Bush has offered that thus far. The "Anything but Bush" (ABB) cries of the Arabs, and those Americans more global in their views, are creating little but tense vibrations of bitterness and anger. "For those around the world who do complain, all I have to say is don't!" Lichtman said. "Organise yourselves," he said, speaking to the Arabs. "I constantly hear people complain about the power of the Jewish lobby. The Arab-American lobby can be much stronger than that, but they need to organise themselves. It's a fact as well that those who do vote do not represent a sample population. And it's also a fact that the vote does not reflect what the world wants. If the ballot was open to the world, I don't doubt Kerry would win. Not so much because his policies are strikingly different, but because I think around the world people would vote not so much against for Kerry, but rather against Bush. What difference it would actually make to the coming four years is debatable. I say it would be at the very most slight."
