Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

What attracks voters to Bush

Gerald Seib:

It now can be told: President Bush is driving up to a quarter of the nation's voters crazy.

That's the percentage of voters who in recent polls say they are supporting John Kerry, but doing so more because they want to vote against President Bush. Within this group are the hard-core Bush haters. You know them: They can't stand the president, can't understand how he was elected and can't figure out why anyone would vote for him. He leaves them sputtering.

In the process, these people actually raise an interesting question: Why DO people vote for George W. Bush anyway? The answer isn't necessarily apparent. He doesn't exactly have a profile that suggests he is presidential timber: mediocre student in his younger days, checkered business history, scanty political résumé for someone in the highest office of the land. He isn't even the smartest guy in his family, or the one with the most obvious political gifts. Most think that nod goes to brother Jeb, governor of Florida.

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Voters want to like the candidate they are choosing for president, want to be comfortable seeing him or her on their television screen every night, and want to have a feeling that the candidate shares their basic values. In the words of one Bush strategist, a presidential candidate needs to be "approachable."

And that's the intangible that explains why many will vote for Mr. Bush despite his blemishes -- and where he has an advantage over John Kerry. To see that, look inside a poll released last week by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

Voters were asked whether they found the presidential candidates personally likable; 47% found Mr. Bush likable, 36% said the same of Mr. Kerry. Asked if the two men were "down to earth," 50% said Mr. Bush was, just 36% said Mr. Kerry was. Who was considered more honest and truthful? Mr. Bush, by a 43% to 35% margin. Voters also found Mr. Bush stubborn -- no surprise there -- and more likely to take an unpopular stand than Mr. Kerry.

Intriguingly, Mr. Luntz, who conducts frequent focus-group discussions with voters to plumb their attitudes, argues that the very personal attributes that attract many voters to Mr. Bush simultaneously turn off many Bush-haters.

"His language is accessible, his emotions are there for people to see, you know what he's feeling, there's no fake to him." Mr. Luntz says. "If he's angry he shows it. If he's excited, he shows it." The unvarnished look appeals to voters inclined to think other politicians are too slick and slippery.

But those very attributes leave some people feeling they want -- and the country deserves -- something deeper and more sophisticated in a president. "They want a Harvard Ph.D. who sounds like a cross between Alistair Cooke and William F. Buckley and Shakespeare," Mr. Luntz says. That ain't Mr. Bush.

Seib wanders off from reality when he describes Kerry as smart. He is not. He has to be the most incoherent man to ever be nominated by a major party. Some of his followers think his incoherence means he is smart, but in Texas that characteristic is described as "baffaling them with his bullsh-t." That is why we conservatives do not think Kerry is smart enough to be President.