THE "IT WON'T BE CLOSE" BRIGADE

Three's a trend, right? That's what people say. Assuming such, the notion that the November election between Bush and Kerry will not be a close one is now just one Howard Fineman column away from being the conventional wisdom. Given events of the past few weeks, speculation leans toward a big win for Kerry, but then again we're barely three weeks out from a Fineman column titled "Why the race is looking so good for Bush."

I don't know where the meme started, but the first one I read was Andrew Sullivan, who wrote at his blog on May 6:

My instinct is that this election will not, in fact, be close. Either Bush will convince people that he is winning the war on terror and turning the economy around and win handsomely, or he won't, and Kerry will win big.

The first published but second to pass my corneas is an essay in the Washington Monthly, by the Hotline's Chuck Todd, making the counterintuitive argument that Bush is Carter (no, seriously). Title: "A Kerry Landslide?" Bottom line:

Elections that feature a sitting president tend to be referendums on the incumbent -- and in recent elections, the incumbent has either won or lost by large electoral margins.

Then on the Sunday shows this morning Christian Science Monitor reporter (and major DC hottie) Liz Marlantes repeated the meme at the prompting of Chris "tell me something I don't know" Matthews. She didn't predict the beneficiary of this supposed landslide, but after a half-hour of Abu Ghraib hand-wringing by the panelists (including Peggy Noonan), I don't need to draw you a chart.

That's three. And I expect more soon, especially from H-Fi, whose next column should be up sometime today. (His one from last week registers the good news for Kerry, but it's still written as if he's expecting a squeaker. Also not counting: John Zogby's much discussed "The Election Is Kerry's To Lose" essay, which calls the electorate "frozen in place" with "very few undecided voters.") As the next six months pass, many more commentators will try out the will-win-big theory for both candidates (here's the WSJ's James Taranto, using different indicators than Todd to make a reverse-Carter argument; see third item).

What I want to know before passing judgment is: What constitutes a landslide? 15 points? 10? 5? Compared to the 2000 election, anything more than a couple points could be interpreted as a big shift in this famously 50-50 (or is it 49-49?) country. The higher the threshold for "landslide," the more skeptical I get. If all we're talking here is "more decisive than last time," then count me on the bandwagon. Then again, considering just how preposterously close the last election was, it's no risky statement to guess that this one will fall outside the margin of error.

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posted by WWB at 11:46 AM |