President Bush held his first rally of the 2004 campaign in Florida on Saturday, attacking Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry as a hypocrite who has consistently voted for tax increases. The event continued the negative tone that has dominated the campaign thus far.
Many experts such as Wilson School professor Larry Bartels, a renowned scholar of campaigns and elections, foresee an especially heated election.
"Bush's policies were more conservative than he sounded [in 2000]," Bartels said. "It's going to be an unusually hard-fought election, and the consequences in terms of policy are going to be even greater."
The major issues on voters' minds, Bartels said, will be the state of the economy, the administration's tax cuts, Iraq and the war on terrorism.
Neither candidate's policies will have a substantial effect on University students' tuition, as the federal government plays a limited role in funding for higher education at private universities.
Bush's reelection website has no information regarding higher education funding. Meanwhile, Kerry has pledged to institute a tax credit on the first $4,000 paid for college tuition.
But Kerry's major proposals are targeted at making public universities more affordable.
He has promised to divert national funding to help states stop rising tuition costs, and is proposing a Service for College plan through which students would be able to earn four-year public university tuition in exchange for two years of community service to the nation.
Looking ahead
Political forecasting models, which have historically been very accurate at predicting election outcomes, are calling for a Republican victory come November.
Expected results range anywhere from a Bush landslide to an extremely tight race.
But Bartels cautioned against placing too much stock in the models, which take into account a number of fluctuating factors such as economic data and presidential approval ratings.
Bartels said Ralph Nader '55 will play a much smaller role in the election than he did in 2000, but will still take some votes from Kerry.
Primary season
Bartels, whose book about presidential primaries is considered one of the defining sources on the subject, said this year's primary followed a surprising course.
"Dean managed to build up such a big lead before the primaries even started and then collapsed so quickly," he said. "The frontloading of primaries has been making it harder to overtake the frontrunner during the process, but that's what Kerry did."
Ultimately, he added, the system succeeded in settling on a candidate quickly – which is just what the party elite wanted.
"There's a great deal of unity about wanting to get rid of Bush," Bartels said.
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