Changing minds? Not really.
I wrote this in an e-mail this morning:
The most shocking thing about this election, with the possible exception of the depth of voter fraud and nullification, is the almost complete lack of movement in the vote: except for New Hampshire, and a few states whose margins of victory last time were under a percent, no states changed hands. Eight million more voters, hundreds of millions of dollars, millions of words written, and it doesn't seem to have changed anyone's mind, in spite of the incredibly important events of the last three years. That's polarization.
Well, Republicans have been saying that their policies will make America stronger and better. Republicans have been saying that we've been on the wrong path. They think they have a mandate, because they have power, but what they really have is a competent and unrestrained drive for victory. Republicans have been saying that they're not fascists, or proto-fascists or pseudo-fascists. Now we'll see.
p.s. I was right, I'm sorry to say. Last November I wrote:
The incumbent Bush-Cheney ticket, one of the tightest pairings in recent presidential politics, can and will trounce any Democratic challenge that attempts to unify the party and appeal to the electorate through political diversity rather than ideological focus. It will be particularly obvious if the vice-presidential candidate comes from the pool of failed presidential candidates, because the primary campaign sniping will be replayed immediately in the press and by the other side. To overcome the Bush/Cheney advantages of unity and [early] money will require near-perfect candidates running a better-than-perfect campaign and some luck to boot.
...
But assume that the economy stays ambiguous, that the situation in Iraq remains only mildly troubling, that no new terrorist attacks happen. Or even assume that these factors don't remain stable, but counter each other: if the situation in Iraq becomes a crisis, but the economy improves, for example. Then political clarity -- ticket unity -- will decide the next election, as it has decided the last five.
Other predictions are put to the test by HNN staff here. The economists and political scientists came out pretty well, it seems. I have doubts, even about my own model, because of the contingencies inherent in this process. There are also some interesting analyses of what might come in this second term culled from HNN's archives here. What makes them interesting is that none of them were written with a second Bush term in mind; most come from around the last midterm elections.