One thing that’s striking about this political season is the confidence of the two sides (see here for a sample from Kevin Drum’s debate with Hugh Hewitt, this Reason article – not even by a Bush supporter – arguing that Bush “is a lock,” and my discussion here of Chuck Todd’s Kerry-landslide theory). I mean, in any presidential election there can be found partisans on each side who are so convinced of the hopelessness of their adversaries that they are certain of victory. But this year seems unusual in that regard – left-leaning sites seem full of posts and comments about how Bush is going down, while many conservative commentators are talking landslide. Me, I admit I have a hard time picturing Kerry actually winning this thing – especially with an improving economy and a likely decline in the level of violence in Iraq by Election Day – much harder than I did with Gore in 2000 or even Clinton in 1992.
All of which will be very interesting to watch, come November. One way or the other, there are a lot of very confident people out there who are going to be eating some serious crow.