Christopher Ruddy
Monday, Nov. 6, 2000

The winner will be . . .

Bush, if you believe the polls. The polls typically skew in favor of the Democrat. With Bush ahead in the polls, this means he will win big.

But then, there is the spoiler.

His name is Ralph Nader. I find it hard to believe Nader will actually pull 4 percent to 8 percent, as he is in many polls. If most of these votes come home to Gore, the race becomes a horse race.

And on the right . . .

there’s Patrick Buchanan. He’s been written off and dismissed by the media and the Republican party. He gets just 1 percent of the vote in most polls. But 1 percent can kill Bush in key states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. A Republican strategist pointed out that in 1976 Eugene McCarthy was knocked off the New York state presidential ballot on legal technicalities. Had he stayed on, he would have pulled at least 50,000 votes in liberal New York and Gerald Ford would have been elected president. This election could be that close.

Stealth Buchananites

may help give Pat even a bit more than 1 percent, because I suspect his supporters don’t like telling pollsters they are voting for Pat. As we know, Pat is not chic. Still, he’s been targeting Christian right and Catholic voters on radio and TV ads. Each vote he grabs, he steals from Bush.

Earth to Perot, over.

Is anyone listening to Ross Perot? Yes, they are. Like Buchanan, he has some die-hard fans. They may believe in Roswell, and that fluoride is part of a global conspiracy, but they vote. Perot has endorsed Bush – whatever his motivation – and that’s good for Bush.

Some DUI suspicions linger

among Republican strategists, who believe the DUI story was dropped last week for one reason: to block out media coverage of Ross Perot’s endorsement. Perot had been scheduled to appear on "Larry King Live" and Gore’s people knew that, and probably knew he would tie his horse to Bush. The endorsement of Mr. Reform should have made big headlines and given some big MO to Bush for the final weekend. But hours before Perot appeared on King’s show, the DUI story was being blast-faxed by Democratic operatives. The Perot endorsement didn’t get noticed much because the news cycle for more than two days have been dominated by the story about Bush’s DUI. How convenient!

And Gore has a hidden trump card,

the ghost of the late Chicago Mayor, Richard Daley, whose son William is managing the Gore campaign. Voter fraud is rampant in many urban centers, just as it was in 1960 when Daley manufactured votes for Kennedy. The press doesn’t report this cancer, because vote fraud helps liberal Democrats. Republicans need to win by landslides to make up for voter fraud, and you can expect such fraud in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Milwaukee, Miami and elsewhere.

If the election is lost . . .

Republicans will have nobody to blame but themselves. For years they have meekly accepted the results of stolen elections. In recent years there have been quite a few examples of stolen elections. Many believe Huffington lost the California Senate race due to voter fraud in 1994. The same is true of a Senate seat in Louisiana, the governorship of Maryland, Bob Dornan’s congressional race and so on.

Bush may be a genius . . .

if he wins. Gore has a great economy behind him and virtual incumbency. Gore won two of the three debates. Gore wins on many of the issues in the polls. Yet he is behind. Bush ran the most polite presidential campaign in recent history. He also had a cakewalk from the rabidly liberal press.

In truth, the press is not so bad this time.

In fact, I have been stunned by how well-behaved the major press has been this election season. For example, the press has not done the usual mudslinging at Bush. Even the DUI thing was rejected by the liberal media pundits. Gore has not been treated as kindly by the media as, say, Bill Clinton and Hillary have. Perhaps the press is just anxious to have an administration they can stand up to. It was recently pointed out to me that we only have a truly divided government with a Republican administration in power. Only then does the press vigorously question and challenge government policies and abuses.

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