Surjit S Bhalla: Birds of the same feather

CALLING THE BLUFF

In early March, in an article entitled "Vajpayee shining, Bush misfiring" I had outlined the reasons why Vajpayee would be re-elected, and Bush thrown out. The first part of the forecast was, well, wrong. But I am sticking to the second prediction. Here's why.

There are eerie parallels between India in March and the US in October. For beginners, the BJP's arrogance is matched smirk by smirk by the Republicans. Second, the opinion polls are as unanimous in the US that Bush will win as they were in India that the NDA would be returned to power.

Third, the intelligentsia is comfortable in its against the grain prediction that Bush would be re-elected; it was the same here with Vajpayee. Fourth, the Indian election result was a surprise to all, especially to the opposition.

The latter got much more than they could even imagine, the former much less than its worst nightmare. Vajpayee lost; given the similarities, why should Bush win?

There are several reasons. Most importantly, it is the negatives, a handicap Vajpayee did not have. I have been following elections in India, the US and the UK with a passion, bordering on obsession, since the US 1968 presidential election. (We, in India, were to have our first meaningful election, almost a decade later).

The negatives polarise the electorate, and Bush is the champion of negatives. His effect on the electorate is unprecedented. Lyndon Johnson had considerably less negatives in 1968, but yet he saw the writing on the gun and resigned.

The next polariser was Mrs Gandhi and she had to endure the bitter pill of defeat in 1977, allowing non-Congress rule for the first time in India. The third on the post-war list, and at a considerable distance behind the polariser leaders Bush and Mrs G, was Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain.

The gap with the leaders is underlined by the fact that she kept on winning, until her own party had to replace her.

Those who support Bush are not too dissimilar from the supporters of Mrs G; but it needs to be remembered that Mrs G apologised for the Emergency""President Bush is adamant about not apologising on Iraq. In 1968, the Democratic candidate, Hubert Humphrey, was not apologetic about Vietnam, but he was heavily nuanced.

It was clear that ending the war was his priority (just the same as that of his contender and beater, Richard Nixon). The Democrats had in 1964, in an eerie precedent to Bush on Iraq, obtained unanimous support for the war via the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Yet there were several changed minds, not unlike John Kerry changing his mind on blindly supporting US policy in Iraq.

The polarisation helps to explain the behaviour of the American liberal in the US 2004 election. This species supports Kerry, but does so in an extremely reserved fashion. In conversations, meetings, and talk shows, these supporters go out of the way to be nauseating in their political correctness; yes, Bush is bad, needs to be ousted, but you know, Kerry is not so great, either.

You know, we do not know his exact stand on Iraq, or on the economy. What will he actually do as President? (As if they approve of what Bush has done as President.) These guys could well be paid subscribers to the Republican propaganda! I have yet to see a Bush supporter being even-handed, let alone magnanimous, in praising the opposition.

Why is the anti-Bush liberal behaving in this fawning manner? One clue could be that she does so because of polarisation, which leads to the "lying factor". Because Americans are dying in Iraq, and this is the post 9/11 era, most undecideds, and even the non hard-core supporters of Kerry, are embarrassed into admitting that they will not vote for the President.

It would alienate them from their friends (in contrast, in a non-polarising world, discussing political differences can be fun), may even seem unpatriotic, and may even lead them into trouble with the authorities. So better not to reveal one's true feelings to the pollster""not unlike what Indian voters did in 1989 against Rajiv Gandhi, and in 2004 against Vajpayee.

There is another simple model that is also suggestive of Bush being considerably less the favourite than assumed. The closeness of the US 2000 election and the subsequent polarisation offer a rare opportunity for a simple election model to work. This model looks at the switchers, the vote changers. Do the following mental experiment.

Conceptually, how many people who voted for Gore in 2000 will vote for Bush in 2004? Not many, I would think. How many people who voted for Bush in 2000 will vote for Kerry in 2004? Likely to be more than a few. Ditto for new entrants into the electoral force.

Add to these additions the possibility that the turnout this year is likely to be higher than in 2000""again, because of the Bush negatives. Unlikely that such circumstances mean a Bush victory.

Some other tidbits to consider. In the last 50 years, only four Presidents (Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton) won a second term. And none did so with an unpopular war on their watch. Further add the reality that the US economy has posted its worst recession recovery in history. Certainly, not facts suggesting a victory, let alone the 8 point lead the opinion polls are revealing.

So will Bush lose? In March, I had offered the argument that Vajpayee will win, and along similar lines to that argued above, that Bush would lose. So either I will be doubly wrong, or be right both because of the law of averages and because the pre-election signs for Bush in the US are the same as they were for Vajpayee in India.

ssbhalla@oxusresearch.com